


take it how you want it (take on my love)

by shawsameen



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: F/M, ratings also vary with each prompt, tags/warnings before each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:14:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 111,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24920641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shawsameen/pseuds/shawsameen
Summary: She might be mad it’s taken him so long. She’ll probably tease him for the macaroni. He can live with both of those things, as long everything works out in the end.// a collection of carmuel prompt fills or original ideas i had. if you have anything you want to see written, feel free to comment!
Relationships: Carla Rosón Caleruega/Samuel García Domínguez
Comments: 328
Kudos: 333





	1. cayendo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Polo had been her boyfriend of nearly five years; getting jealous when they were still together was normal. Samuel… she doesn’t know what to classify him as. She only knows that she shouldn’t be so fucking jealous because of a boy who isn’t technically hers.
> 
> Although, Carla’s beginning to discover that she wishes he was. And that’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the rating will change appropriately if i write something higher than teen, and character tags will be added as well as i go along. warning tags, however, will be put before the start of each chapter so as not to overtag the fic itself. thanks for everyone who has been reading, commenting, and leaving kudos on my fic, because it’s you who keep making me want to keep writing for this ship who deserves all the happiness in the world <3
> 
> this one’s for **parkandjeans** and **vici1997** who both requested a fiery, jealous carla. jealousy—done healthily and not in a toxic kind of way!—is my weakness, but i also wanted to keep this as in character as possible, so i’m sorry if i dropped the ball a little on the fiery part. i hope you like it all the same :)
> 
> supposed to be set in some nebulous s2 timeline where everything is pretty much the same (including their secret relationship) except they don’t manipulate each other over marina’s murder and everyone’s as normal as it’s possible for them to be, but then i realized it could probably be read as in-canon too, so there. the notes are finally over with djffkdjf, enjoy!

There are times where Carla finds Samuel’s obliviousness cute.

For example, when he’s sketching and forgets that his hands are covered in charcoal, so when she suddenly lets out a snort from her place on his bed he looks up in confusion, unaware of the black finger smudges all over his face. Or when he starts to daydream in class, tuning their teacher out and gaze drifting to the window as Carla’s does the same to him, silently appreciating the sharp lines of his profile before smiling to herself because it takes Nadia smacking him on the arm to get him to pay attention again. Or when they’ve spent the afternoon studying and Carla wants to move onto things that involve more lips and heavy petting and are generally much more fun than taking notes or reading flash cards (something he’d have to do less of if he didn’t space out in the middle of lectures), and he’s got his nose stuck so deep into their chemistry textbook that he doesn’t pick up on any of the hints she’s dropping.

(Actually, that last one can get kind of annoying, and she’s honestly had to just throw the book aside and climb into his lap on more than one occasion, because for someone so smart he can still be so _clueless_.)

But anyway, there _are_ times when it’s cute… and this isn’t one of them. 

It’s a Friday, so Barceló’s VIP section is as packed as ever; in this case, with a multitude of women, since the theme of the evening happens to be ladies’ night. Regardless of the sea of heads, from the booth she’s sitting in Carla has a perfect view of where Samuel is casually leaning against the fluorescent bar on the other side of the room, which means she’s also had just as clear a line of sight to the random girl who’s been chatting him up for the past fifteen minutes.

And counting, because the thing is, Carla’s almost positive the idiot has no idea he’s being flirted with. She’s not about to let her mood dictate her into tearing other women down, so she can admit the girl is pretty: her hair is long and dark, cascading all the way down to her lower back, and she’s got full lips painted a shade just as deep. Her dress is tight and short—which obviously isn’t unusual, even Carla’s following that trend, but she’s just tall enough that Samuel’s knuckles are dangerously close to brushing the hem were she to shift an inch. Carla’s sure the possibility of that happening is astoundingly high, based on how the girl is practically telegraphing the fact that she wants to fuck him. 

And Carla has always been more observant than most, but seriously, it only takes someone with both functioning eyes and a brain to figure out what the girl’s coy, bitten-lip smiles and glancing brushes against Samuel’s arm mean. Based on the way Carla has watched her advances go unnoticed this whole time though, Samuel clearly doesn’t have either. That probably says something about Carla’s taste in men. As it is, however, she’s too fucking irritated to hear it.

She doesn’t even know why she’s irritated. She and Samuel aren’t together. They study for exams in his room, or watch movies on his laptop, or have disgusting, home cooked dinners around his coffee table, yes. They have plenty of sex too, sure. And maybe she falls asleep in his arms afterwards, most of the time. But nobody knows about that. Or knows about them, because there _is_ no them, because they aren’t together. Therefore, Carla has no reason to feel so… whatever it is she’s feeling right now.

Samuel says something, the girl throws her head back in a laugh, and with a sudden thought that somehow makes her fingers go even tighter around the stem of her glass, Carla realizes it’s _jealousy_. 

Jealous. That’s what she is. It comes as a shock, though not because it’s a foreign concept to her; she’s obviously felt jealousy before. It’s just—she’s _jealous_. Over _Samuel_. When she first had him in the bathroom around the corner, she never thought she’d come to this point. It had been fun, a whimsical decision easily made because she was a little buzzed and he was broodily handsome and she was horny and he was _there_. She hadn’t even looked twice in Samuel’s direction before that night, so why would she find herself jealous now?

Carla knows the answer, though. Somehow, he and his stupid bedspread and terrible taste in movies and even worse kitchen skills… and his sincere charm and gentle hands and softer words, damn it, have seeped into her, apparently so thoroughly that the sight of him smiling as he talks to this other girl has had Carla clenching her jaw so hard that it’s aching. Still, she can’t bring herself to relax. She can’t even bring herself to look away, to check back in to whatever shallow topic Lu’s been prattling on about since they sat down.

The girl at the bar ducks her head, tucks a piece of hair behind her ear that she’d deliberately let loose a few moments before, and rakes her eyes over Samuel’s body with such obvious intent that Carla has to set everything she’s previously thought aside, because there’s no way in hell Samuel is so blind to miss _that_. He has to know he’s being hit on. And since he has to know, that only means one thing: he’s flirting back. Part of Carla wishes she was close enough to hear what they’re talking about. Another part wants to stalk over and stake some sort of claim on him in front of her, in front of everyone, but she throws that thought away just as soon as it crosses her mind. It makes her stomach curdle in a way that’s decidedly different than how it’s been knotted up for the past several minutes.

Nobody knows about them, true. You could even say that they’re hiding, but Carla isn’t ashamed of Samuel, that isn’t it. Selfishly (and it _is_ selfish, because it’s a futile notion, especially when she knows that they can’t possibly work), part of Carla, a part much bigger than the other two right now, wants to keep him to herself. 

She watches as the girl curls her manicured hand around Samuel’s neck, pulling him down so that she can whisper in his ear, evidently done skirting around the bush. And he goes so easily, so willingly, that Carla can’t stand to be in this fucking club for another second, carelessly dropping her drink onto the table and standing up. As she collects her purse and strides to the exit, she distinctly hears Lu saying, _what the fuck, who shit in_ her _champagne?_

Carla feels claustrophobic, like she’s suffocating, and it’s only partially because she has to push through a whole throng of bodies polluting the club’s main dance floor downstairs just to get outside. When she does, she takes in a deep breath, and the cold air feels good in her lungs even though it doesn’t do much in terms of getting rid of the low simmer in her blood. She honestly doesn’t think anything will help with that short of leaving, so Carla walks over to an empty space of wall and pulls her phone out, quickly ordering herself a Cabify to take her home.

To be honest, home still has this club beat for the last place on Earth she wants to be at the moment, but she’s hard pressed for other options. Especially since her preferable one is inside, still getting flirted with or possibly doing other things that she’d really rather not consider right now. Her subconscious doesn’t seem to care about that though, and Carla feels her face settling into a scowl as she pictures Samuel and that girl back in the bathroom Carla had led him into all those months ago, fingers digging painfully into her arms where they’re crossed over her chest.

Perhaps, however, she’s not all that angry with Samuel. Well, don’t get her wrong, she _is_ , but maybe she’s also mad at herself. Like she said, jealousy is something that she’s felt before, but never this strongly, and never over something with so little reason. She had _reason_ with Polo. Polo had been her boyfriend of nearly five years; getting jealous when they were still together was normal. Samuel… she doesn’t know what to classify him as. She only knows that she shouldn’t be so fucking jealous because of a boy who isn’t technically hers.

Although, Carla’s beginning to discover that she wishes he was. And _that’s_ the crux of the issue, isn’t it.

She blows out a heavy breath, rubbing her thumb between her eyebrows to try and ease her growing headache. A quick glance back at her phone tells her it’s only been about two minutes since she placed her ride order, and a rechecking of the confirmation text tells her she’s got roughly ten more to spare. Great.

“Leaving already?”

Carla stiffens as soon as she hears the voice, the finger she’d been tapping impatiently on her bicep pausing instantaneously. She’d been staring down the street, so she’s facing away from him, and it’s easy to school her features into something completely neutral before she turns her head back. Samuel’s standing with his hands in his pockets, posture relaxed, smile much the same. And, she notes first and foremost, he’s alone.

“Are you?” She asks without answering. He shakes his head, leaving a few inches of space between them as he leans against the wall beside her, and Carla frowns. “Then why are you out here?”

“I saw you walk out,” he says simply.

Carla can’t help the small scoff that escapes her. “Unlikely.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He is so damned _oblivious_.

“Nothing,” Carla sighs out irritably. “Never mind.”

She looks back down the street under the pretense of searching for her car, which is redundant considering how it’s only been a few seconds and she doesn’t even remember what it looks like besides that, and she feels Samuel’s eyes doing the same on her profile, trying to decipher her mood. He pieces it together swiftly, because as previously stated, he’s not actually stupid. 

“You’re mad.” She doesn’t say anything; it’s easier than saying yes, saying no would be a blatant lie, and shrugging just seems petulant. “Are you mad at me?”

Maybe she’s feeling a _tad_ petulant, because she lifts her shoulder.

“Why?”

Carla can’t answer that. She can’t tell him the things she’s barely formulating in her own head, not when she’s struggling to come to grips with them herself, and not when she knows they wouldn’t do either of them any good regardless. So she continues to remain silent, staring at the ever changing stop lights until she’s forced to blink away the burn, before doing it all over again. She senses Samuel shift after a moment or two and assumes that he’s getting ready to head back inside, done trying to puzzle her together; she tries to ignore the confusing mixture of relief and disappointment that that leaves her with. 

Then she feels something warm and wet flicking against the corner of her mouth, and Carla’s eyebrows immediately drift up to meet her hairline. She turns to look at Samuel again, anger momentarily replaced by amusement she’s unable to properly stifle. 

“You had lip gloss,” he says by way of explanation, gesturing vaguely. 

“So you lick it off?”

He releases a dramatic sigh, head tipping back with it, and he looks so ridiculous that Carla’s lips twitch up in spite of herself. He notices, face splitting with a cheeky, triumphant-looking grin of his own. “Fine, I just wanted to get you to smile. It worked, didn’t it?”

She purses her lips in a last-ditch effort to hide it, but it’s too late. “No, I was smiling because you’re an idiot.”

“Like I said, it worked,” he responds. She smiles fully, rolling her eyes. “Wanna tell me why you’re pissed at me now?”

“Not really.”

“Oh. Okay, then.”

Carla glances up at him. He’s giving her a look that says something along the lines of _nice try, but you’re not getting rid of me that easily_ , and her instinctual response to the way that makes her stomach flip is to ask, only somewhat bitterly but definitely too on-the-nose, “Who was that girl you were talking to?”

“What girl? You mean, Natalia?” _Natalia_. He knows her name. Carla struggles to keep her expression even again, giving absolutely nothing away, which is hard when Samuel appears as if he’s confused as to why she’s even bringing _Natalia_ up. “I went to San Esteban with her. We haven’t seen each other since then, so we were catching up. Why?”

“Nothing,” she says again. Then, tacking on pointedly, “It’s just that Natalia wanted to do a lot more than catch up with you.”

Samuel’s brows furrow as he deciphers what she’s talking about, and then they furrow even deeper as if she’s the one who’s being insensible here. “What? No, that’s ridiculous. We were barely even friends.”

At that, Carla levels him with the flattest look she’s ever offered another person in her entire life. “You don’t have to be friends with someone to want to fuck them, Samuel. You should know that better than anyone else.”

After all, they weren’t friends when they first slept together. Are they even friends now? 

He blinks at her meaning, then seems to blink at the whole notion of Natalia wanting to have sex with him, and when Carla rolls her eyes this time it’s much less fond. “God, you can be so…” She trails off, scrutinizing his face for any sign that he’s not being genuine. But _she_ should know better than anyone else that Samuel is nothing if not that. “You honestly didn’t have any clue? Not even a suspicion?”

“I think you’re forgetting that you’re only the second girl I’ve ever been with,” he reminds her, tone light. 

But now Carla blinks, because she _had_ forgotten. 

It’s just… Samuel is nice, good-looking, and, in a cheesy sort of way that she begrudgingly likes, surprisingly charming. He’s even got that soulful, open-hearted artist thing going for him. It’d been hard for her to believe that he’d never had a girlfriend before Marina when he shyly admitted it to her a couple months ago, and it’s still as difficult to accept now. She can’t imagine how anyone at his old school managed to stay away from him.

(Deep down, if she allows herself to think about it, she can’t imagine how Marina didn’t fall for him at all.)

Carla swallows, hands suddenly clammy. She realizes she hadn’t replied, but too much time has passed by now, and she can practically hear the gears in Samuel’s head turning anyway. 

“Wait,” he suddenly says a beat later. “Were you asking because—are you _jealous_?”

A dry scoff escapes her, but she subconsciously tightens her arms around her chest. Again, Samuel notices; she doesn’t know why he’s choosing _now_ all of a sudden to start picking up on things right under his nose. 

“You are,” he states. “That’s why you’re mad at me.”

“Don’t kid yourself.”

“You don’t have a right to be,” he tells her then, ignoring her forced dismissiveness. Carla tries not to puff up in anger, because he’s right, and she hates it and knows that it’s childish. She’s not a childish person. Never has been, not even when she was an actual child. But Samuel has this habit of making Carla learn new things about herself, pulling her back layer by layer like he does, even though he doesn’t realize it. 

And it is _aggravating_.

“So why don’t you go find Natalia then, huh? You and I aren’t together, she’s pretty, she wants you. What’s stopping you?”

“I don’t want her,” he says so automatically, so matter-of-factly, that Carla closes her mouth and drops her shoulders a little in surprise. “That’s what’s stopping me.”

She stares at him, eyebrows still stuck in a frown. He sighs and turns so that he’s facing her, arm pressed to the wall. 

“I followed you out here because I thought something was wrong with you, and I was worried. I’ve been more or less hyper aware of your presence since you walked into the club. Maybe that’s why I didn’t realize Natalia was flirting with me,” he continues, shifting his other arm in a shrug. “And yeah, she’s pretty. But she’s not the girl I was planning on taking home at the end of the night. Though I’m not sure that girl may still want to come with me, because she’s kinda pissed.”

That last part is designed to get Carla to laugh, and again, it works. She huffs quietly, but her stomach is also doing something weird and fluttery, intensifying when Samuel lifts his hand to the nape of her neck and sweeps his thumb over the hinge of her jaw. 

“I know we aren’t together,” he starts, “but I always thought it was obvious that I wasn’t interested in anybody else.”

She snorts again. “‘Obvious.’ Rich, coming from you,” she says, though her voice is lighter now. It gets softer as she brings her fingers up to wrap around Samuel’s wrist and adds, “Me neither.”

“Good.” He smiles. “So can I kiss you now, or are you still angry with me?”

Instead of answering she erases the short distance between them, leaning forward and slotting their lips together. Samuel’s hand disappears into her hair; she drops her own to his chest, resting over the fabric of his shirt. They kiss deeply, if not slowly, and Carla loves how it has her buzzing from head to toe.

And secretly—spitefully—the remaining dregs of jealousy within her has her hoping Natalia somehow walks out and sees them. Sees that it’s Carla who Samuel wants to flirt with, wants to kiss, wants to fuck. Not her. 

As if reading her mind, Samuel parts from her with a low, wet sound. She chases him briefly, but he doesn’t go far, and when she opens her eyes he’s got a smirk curling the edge of his mouth. 

“You’re hot when you’re mad, you know.”

“You shouldn’t tell women that. It’s objectifying, and they don’t like it.”

Her words don’t properly chastise him, maybe because of how she’s smiling too. “But _you_ like it.”

“Well, I’m not like other women.”

“No, you definitely are not,” he replies, eyes gleaming meaningfully. 

She searches them, and she is fully aware that yet another one of her layers is being pulled back as she does so. But what she finds underneath, like some diamond in the rough, doesn’t surprise her. What _is_ surprising, however, is how she doesn’t find it scary. Not even in the slightest. 

(She can’t imagine how Marina resisted falling for him, because Carla had apparently done it swiftly, quietly, and unknowingly.)

Her phone chimes, snapping her out of her thoughts, and she glances down at the new text informing her that her Cabify has finally arrived. Samuel sees it as well, and in response to the unasked question reflecting in his eyes when she meets them again, Carla grabs him by the wrist once more and leads him to the car waiting by the curb. She gives the driver his address off the top of her head, and when she turns back to him, he’s got an odd look on his face. It isn’t _bad_ , but… a little pleased. Contemplative. Like he’s starting to learn new things about himself, too.

He kisses her like it doesn’t scare him either. 


	2. on the pulse of morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s lying on her stomach, cheek pressed into her pillow, and she’s got an arm draped over Samuel’s midriff that tightens in protest when he attempts to roll onto his shoulder to face her, so he doesn’t. He will gladly suffer a crick in his neck from the weird angle if that means her sleep remains comfortable and undisturbed, because there are precious few moments where Carla looks as peaceful as she does now, and he loves seeing her like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for: **strawberrycheese**
> 
> rating: mature
> 
> prompt: taylor swift’s song “out of the woods,” particularly the line “when the sun came up, you were looking at me,” and i mostly just ran with that last bit, oops. hope you like this anyway!
> 
> warnings: implied (or like glossed over and totally non-explicit, it’s very brief if you’re concerned about that sort of thing) sexual content

For as long as he can remember Samuel has always been an early riser, borne mostly out of necessity and not because he just particularly liked mornings. If he didn’t have school, then he had work, and oftentimes he had to compete with Nano or their mom for the bathroom as they had their own places to be, too. And then he had to _bike_ everywhere, so there was also accounting for that. While he doesn’t need to rush nearly as much anymore now that he has his own apartment, car, and a steady, nine-to-five job, waking up with the sun is a habit far too ingrained in him to break. Hell, trying not to feel as if he’s wasting precious time if he stays in bed for longer than a couple of minutes is already hard enough.

But he’s gotten far better about that then he used to be, so when Samuel wakes at his normal hour he does it leisurely and without any guilt whatsoever. He stretches his legs and rubs his eyes, he lets out a yawn and scratches his head, and then he turns it to take part in what he considers to be the best perk of rising so early: observing the girl still asleep next to him. 

The morning light is cutting into the bedroom in a burst of golden lines, highlighting freckles of lint floating about in the air and doing the same to the ones faintly spattered across the bridge of Carla’s nose. She’s lying on her stomach, cheek pressed into her pillow, and she’s got an arm draped over Samuel’s midriff that tightens in protest when he attempts to roll onto his shoulder to face her, so he doesn’t. He will gladly suffer a crick in his neck from the weird angle if that means her sleep remains comfortable and undisturbed, because there are precious few moments where Carla looks as peaceful as she does now, and he loves seeing her like this. Walls down, bared before him in pretty much every sense of the word; it’s not like she’s guarded around him, not anymore—and not for a very long time, at that—but he doesn’t get to look at her quite like this when she’s awake to catch him. He loves the teasing face she makes when she does, of course, or the way her cheeks color slightly if he’s being particularly open and unbridled with his adoration of her. To be honest, he won’t ever get used to seeing her blush because of him and he doesn’t want to, but right now, when it’s just him and the sun and her breathing softly beside him… there’s nothing like it.

It’s his favorite part of his morning routine, and today he has the day off, so instead of jumping up to shower or cook breakfast after a minute of indulgence like he normally would, he contents himself with staying right where he is. He traces her lax features with his eyes instead of his fingers like he wants to, following a path along the fall of her eyelashes, down the slight upturn of her nose, over the kissable shape of her mouth. A deep but gentle sigh escapes her when he gets to the point of her chin, almost as if she’s aware of what he’s doing, and he smiles to himself in amusement. Even unconscious, very little escapes her notice. 

The top sheet has slid down her back at some point in the middle of the night, revealing an expanse of smooth, lightly tanned skin to him. Her shoulders are also dusted with freckles, a few darker moles peppered in here and there across the rest of her back and arms that he mentally connects like constellations. And then he does give in to the need to physically touch her, dragging his finger along the invisible lines but keeping his touch just light enough that it doesn’t wake her still; the tawny hairs on her arms stand up beneath the attention, and he smooths them down with his thumb, ending at the spur of bone in her wrist. Her hand flexes slightly on his abdomen before relaxing just as abruptly, and Carla snuggles deeper into her pillow, making another quiet noise. Samuel, not for the first time, can’t help but compare how she sleeps to a cat: the way she tends to burrow and purr into whatever soft, tangible object is closest to her—him, usually—and how if she lies on her side she’s almost always curled up in a ball, knees drawn to her chest. She even wakes like one, reluctantly and grumpily, a pair of green eyes peering out from behind narrowed lids.

It’s admittedly adorable, and damn it if he doesn’t want to see that look now, so he finally leans over to press a kiss to his favorite cluster of moles on the crest of her shoulder. She rolls the joint like she’s trying to shrug him off, grumbling sleepily, and that makes him chuckle.

“Wake up,” he whispers, lips brushing her skin.

“Fuck off,” is her gravelly, mostly muffled reply.

He laughs again. God, he really, really loves her. 

Carla’s eyes remain stubbornly closed. She’s idling in the limbo between slumber and full-blown consciousness, and Samuel knows that if he lets her be now then she’ll drift back off towards the former. But he also knows that she wouldn’t mind all that much if he persisted, at least not today.

He moves onto his own shoulder, grabbing up her hand before it can slide onto the empty space of mattress between them and kissing her knuckles. He pays a particular amount of attention to her ring finger. Eyes still shut, she smiles the faintest of smiles, growing wider once she hears what he says next.

“Marry me,” he mumbles, mouth trailing back up her forearm and bicep, stopping to nip at the light tone of muscle there. 

“I don’t think my husband would like that so much.”

“He sounds like an asshole,” Samuel says. “Divorce him.”

Carla finally cracks an eye open, but instead of looking disgruntled with being woken up before an hour that isn’t in the double-digits, she just seems amused. And as in love as he feels right now, nose pressed into her arm, grinning up at her cheekily.

“I _would_ , but you see, the wedding was just last night. Give it a month or two, maybe.”

He laughs into her skin, and Carla brings up her hand to brush through his bed-tousled hair, the band of the ring he’d slid onto her finger yesterday a gentle pressure smoothing over his scalp. She shifts a little bit and he makes room so that she can nuzzle into his chest, wrapping his arm around her back. She lets out a quiet, contented hum when he begins to slowly drag his palm up and down her spine. He smiles over the top of her head. See? Just like a cat. 

“Mm, you’re warm,” she sighs after a second.

“You’re naked.”

“I wonder whose fault that is.”

“Complaining?”

“I will be if you don’t take advantage of my nakedness soon,” she says in return. “It’s the only thing worth being up this early for.”

He knows she’s teasing, he can feel her smirking against him, but he tugs gently on the ends of her hair in mock-offense anyway. She lets the movement tip her chin up, beaming into the kiss they share unhurriedly and uncaringly. 

Well, Carla cares a little, because the morning breath has her wrinkling her nose fairly quickly before she pushes him away with her fingertips on his chest. She grins and smoothly rolls onto her back to dodge him when he playfully tries to duck back down, but he just rolls over with her, chin coming to a rest between her breasts. He blinks up at her in what he knows has to be a truly laughable picture of purity and virtue given how they’re both naked and reeking of sex; Carla covers her face with her hand, refusing to look at him under the pretense of trying to go back to sleep. When he tickles his tongue against the satiny skin of her sternum, he catches a bright green eye and an even brighter smile poking out from the gaps between her fingers.

Maybe Carla’s cat-like aptitude has rubbed off on him a tiny bit, because Samuel decides that it’s his turn to nestle into her. He can’t help it, she’s just so soft, and her breasts are warm when he gently noses the undersides of them. His lips skim over the supple skin and she hums a low, melodic sound; the hand that she slips back into his hair is patient, more content to pet than push him down any lower, but Samuel goes anyway, suckling over each individual rib. 

By the time he gets to her stomach he has to stop and just press his face into her, a little overwhelmed by how much he’s in love with this woman beneath him, overwhelmed by the fact that she found him worth _marrying_ , overwhelmed by how this isn’t some fever dream—that, by some stroke of incredible luck, everything that they’ve been through together hasn’t hung over them like a dense, dark cloud these last few years. Carla must be able to tell where his thoughts have gone, because her nails scratch lightly at his scalp in a way he knows is meant to get him to look up at her. So he does.

“I love you,” she murmurs.

He smiles to reassure her that he’s not being depressing, just reflective. _Grateful_. 

“I love you, too.”

Then he disappears back into the dip of her bellybutton, tracing his tongue around it just to make her huff because she’s ticklish. He charts an ardent course down her body, and Carla wordlessly spreads her thighs for him when he gets to them, eyelids fluttering but never once closing all the way.

They make languid, tranquil love, movements tempered by the warmth and tiredness still settled in their bones. They don’t even move fast enough to work up much of a sweat really, and it’s mostly quiet save for their gentle gasps or the occasional rustle of sheets. But it’s perfect. With his lips to her temple and her face hidden in his shoulder, Samuel thinks it’s fucking perfect.

After, Carla tucks herself against his side, expression flushed and sated, index finger absently dragging around the stubble on his chin. He’s half-convinced she’s going to fall back asleep, but then again Samuel feels just relaxed enough to as well, and like he said, it’s his day off. He can afford to spend the entirety of it in bed, and he certainly has no qualms about it if he has her for company. 

“Were you watching me sleep again?”

Her voice is hardly more than a rumble, the typically low quality to it even deeper with both drowsiness and laziness. It warms his chest infinitely more than the rays of sunlight that are shining in through the shutters, and he looks down at her, nodding.

“How’d you know?”

“Because you always do,” she responds with a quick eye roll, and the sound she lets out through her nose is more sigh than laugh when he catches the tip of her finger between his lips, nipping lightly. She pulls her hand back; squishes his mouth, chastising, then drops it to rest over his collarbone. A moment passes. “I can’t believe I’ve never asked before, but… how long have you been doing that?”

“Since I woke up, duh.”

“It’s a shame the man I married has such a shitty sense of humor. What a dull life for me.”

He snickers, hooking their ankles together so that her leg is draped over his own. “Honestly, I‘ve never really thought about it,” he answers seriously a moment later. “The first time you came to my apartment was the red party, right?”

Carla nods. “That was the best sleep I’d had in a while,” she says quietly.

“But I don’t think it was even then. I think it was after, later, when you started coming over because you wanted company and not because you wanted to make your move in our game.” He smooths his hand down her arm before she can stiffen, not wanting to dig up less than pleasant memories. “Maybe it was the night you told me you were lonely, actually. I remember looking at you lying across from me as we talked, and even though you’d been more open with me than ever, you still had that one last defense up. But we were talking, then all of a sudden you were asleep, and it was gone, just like that. Your face was so serene, devoid of all the masks you put up for everyone else. I knew very few people had ever gotten to see you like that. And despite everything else that was going on between us, you trusted me with it. 

“After that, it just started becoming a habit. I’d make up stories for how you got that little scar at the corner of your mouth, I’d count all the freckles on your nose until I was going cross eyed. It was like… I don’t know, a secret within our secret.” He shrugs, slow and simple. “Which I guess just means I had fallen in love with you. The real you.”

Carla doesn’t say anything, even though he knows she’s still awake. Her silence doesn’t make him anxious though; he contentedly traces abstract patterns on the curve of her hip, eyes getting heavier and heavier with each second that passes. And it’s right when he’s about to drift off that he hears her voice again. 

“It used to scare me,” she admits, “baring myself like that.”

He squeezes her hip to let her know that he’s still listening, waiting for her to continue. 

“It used to scare me how easily you were able to see through me, but then it didn’t. None of it did. And I think that’s what scared me most, because we weren’t supposed to make sense, but it never once felt wrong.” She suddenly breathes out a chuckle. “Shit, if someone would’ve told me then where I’d be right now…”

Samuel grins with her, languorous as it is. “You’d punch them? That’s never exactly been your style.”

She tilts her head in acquiescence. “You’re right,” she says, words dripping with mischief. “I’m more of an open-palmed slap type of girl, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” he groans, feeling her body vibrate with laughter beside him. The reasons for why she’d slapped him may not be pleasant either, but it’s also somehow become something they can joke about over the years. Or something that she and Rebe can joke about, since hitting Samuel happens to be a common factor between them. 

“It’s not my fault your face is just so smackable.”

“I think you mean kissable.”

“Is that right?” He hums in affirmation as he lowers down to brush their lips together. “I don’t think that’s right.”

“I doubt you’re going to have a dull life, after all. You have enough jokes to cover the both of us until we’re all old and wrinkled.”

“Old and wrinkled,” she quotes with a scoff. “Speak for yourself, babe.”

Samuel snorts, then nuzzles his face into her hair. “Fine. Then wake me up when _I’m_ all old and wrinkled, and you’re still young and beautiful.”

His stomach chooses that moment to growl; being an early riser also means being an early eater, a fact unhelped by the morning’s recent, if not slight, exertion. He doesn’t have to see Carla’s expression to know that it’s riddled with amusement. “You sure you can wait that long?”

“I can wait forever, in this bed,” he sighs dreamily, letting the familiar scent of his wife coax him back into unconsciousness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m SOFT. and also i can’t stay away from themes of physical intimacy, pillow talk, or marriage apparently (or having them say they love each other since carla never did in canon even though we ALL knew that shit smh). as always, don’t forget to leave prompts, and thank you for reading <3


	3. doctor samuel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Samuel holds the back of his palm to her forehead, and sure enough, she’s burning up. Definitely too hot to be caused by anything but a cold, at the very least. He hums lowly. “You have a fever.”
> 
> “That’s ridiculous,” Carla immediately counters, eyebrows drawing together in indignation. It’s cute, but again, there are more pressing matters at hand. “I don’t get _sick_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen i know spaniards use celsius but i’m american this cannot be helped so please bear with me using fahrenheit kdfjdkfj
> 
> for: **vici1997** (i wanted to fill prompts in order, but this just couldn’t get out of my head and it clearly got away from me a little bit)
> 
> rating: teen
> 
> prompt: sick carla with samuel taking care of her
> 
> additional tags: general hurt/comfort, fluff, flirting, and nudity but not in a sexual manner

When Samuel gets home from work, the apartment is quiet. 

He knows today had been the only day of the week where Carla’s schedule lined up with both Valerio and Yeray’s equally hectic ones, so the silence that greets him when he opens the door isn’t what he finds unusual, having already figured he’d beat her here by a good hour or two depending on how much winery business they needed to discuss. No, what’s unusual is that he has to blink to let his eyes adjust, because the place is staggeringly dark. All of the curtains are drawn shut, and Samuel drops his keys in the bowl beside him with a frown. He’s positive they hadn’t been like this earlier. _He’s_ the one who’d opened them before he left for work. 

Shaking his head, he crosses to the pair of curtains hanging limply over the living room window, then ties them aside to let the early evening’s light wash back into the place. When he turns around, only a few of his newfound questions are answered by what he sees. 

Carla’s laptop is sitting open on the coffee table next to her own keys and a barely-eaten salad that has begun to wilt and go brown, the pea coat he’d seen her shrug on while they were both getting ready that morning has been unceremoniously thrown over the back of the couch, and there are a pair of red heels just as carelessly discarded on the throw rug, the shoes’ red leather standing boldly out against the carpet’s simple white color, like blood. Coupled with how worrying this scene kind of seems, that thought doesn’t sit well with him whatsoever.

He moves out of the living area and into the hallway, toward their bedroom. “Carla?”

There’s no answer, but the door’s cracked. He pushes it open—and finds what he can only describe as a literal mountain of blankets piled high on top of his and Carla’s mattress.

It’s just as dim in here as it’d been in the rest of the apartment, but he has to keep from letting out a snort at the sight, even if his anxieties aren’t completely cleared. The mass of blankets is so huge that it’s difficult to discern if there’s even a person under there, so Samuel quietly pads in and sits down on the edge of the bed. He finds a corner of one of the comforters and peels it back, then keeps going until the top of a familiarly blonde head peeks out.

It takes about two seconds flat for him to notice that it— _she’s_ —shaking like a leaf caught in a violent windstorm.

“Samuel?” 

The cocoon Carla has wrapped herself in means it comes out more than a bit muffled, but that still doesn’t hide from him how utterly weak she sounds. One of her hands creeps out, searching for him, and Samuel takes it without thinking twice.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he murmurs, somehow feeling like he needs to keep his voice low. Just in case she hadn’t heard him, he squeezes gently to reassure her that he’s there. “Are you okay? Did something happen at work?”

It’s not like Carla to shut herself off when she’s having a hard time, at least not like _this_ , not physically, but he had assumed it wouldn’t hurt to ask anyway. She shakes her head in reply, and a second later she drags the blankets down so that her face is revealed to him. It’s very beautiful, of course—and also, from what the stray light coming in from the hall allows him to see, incredibly flushed. He smiles and reaches over to softly brush a few strands of hair away from her forehead; her skin is warmer than normal, though that could just be from being burrowed within her haphazard mini-fort.

“Hi,” she says, and the brittle quality to her voice is much more evident now without all of the barriers separating it from his ears. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too,” he replies easily. “What’s wrong? You were supposed to have a meeting with the guys.”

“I cancelled.” At his frown, she continues, “I woke up with a huge headache that just got worse throughout the day, so I came home early to try and work from the couch.”

That explains the abandoned salad. And the mess in general, because Carla is typically a borderline neat-freak, which is something he weirdly loves about her. She tends to clean when she’s stressed, and—that’s besides the point.

“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well before I left?”

The lump of blankets shifts as she shrugs, and Samuel’s sort of impressed that she can still manage to level him with a flat look despite everything. “What would you have been able to do? It was just a headache. I thought a few painkillers would get rid of it in no time.”

Samuel holds the back of his palm to her forehead, and sure enough, she’s burning up. Definitely too hot to be caused by anything but a cold, at the very least. He hums lowly. “You have a fever.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Carla immediately counters, eyebrows drawing together in indignation. It’s cute, but again, there are more pressing matters at hand. “I don’t get _sick_.”

“You’re shivering like crazy,” he points out.

“That’s because it’s always fucking cold in here.”

“It’s actually really hot right now. Did you turn up the heat?” Carla’s silence is an answer in itself, and he huffs a quiet chuckle before tipping his head thoughtfully. “Shit. I don’t think we have a thermometer anywhere around here.”

“Good, because we don’t need it. I’m not sick.”

He gestures at the general state of her. “What do you call this, then?”

“Under the weather,” she says. “A tad.”

The fact that a shudder chooses now to wrack through her body would be laughable were it not also accompanied by a tiny, pained whimper, and Samuel feels worry pulse through him all over again. “Yeah, it’s definitely neither of those.” He starts to stand up. “I’m gonna go to the store to get you some things.”

Carla’s hand tightens around his and she actually lets out a whine of protest, even if it’s just as quiet as every other noise that’s left her so far. “No, don’t go.”

“I’ll be quick,” he promises, leaning down to kiss her forehead. It’s a light touch, but he feels Carla’s resulting wince regardless, and he brushes his thumb against the back of her hand soothingly. “You need medicine. And I should pick up a thermometer while I’m there just so we can be sure your fever isn’t dangerously high.”

The unhappy crease between her eyebrows hasn’t disappeared, but she also doesn’t fight him when he tries to stand again, so he counts that as a win. However, she _does_ let out another whine after he cracks open the window and parts the curtains just enough to let some air into the room. Samuel smiles at her in apology, catching her glare. “Trust me, it’ll help. Try to get some sleep while I’m gone, alright? I’ll be right back.”

Thankfully, there’s a supermarket right around the corner from their apartment that they visit regularly, so he gets there in less than five minutes and makes a beeline for the first aid aisle. He tosses a bottle of ibuprofen and acetaminophen each into his cart, a couple thermometers like he promised, and then some cough drops as well—even if he doesn’t know whether or not Carla’s throat is bothering her, he figures it’s better to play it safe than sorry. He moves on after that, not wanting to go too overboard on the medicine, knowing from experience that sometimes it can hinder more than it helps. And experience also reminds him of all the times his mom used to make him and Nano soup whenever they got sick; he thinks he knows most, if not all, of the ingredients off the top of his head, and he promptly picks up what he needs along with a few other things before heading to checkout.

All in all, the trip doesn’t take him more than twenty minutes tops, but Carla is out like a light when he gets back nonetheless. He decides to let her sleep for a little longer while he prepares the soup, chucking the chicken, stock, and vegetables into a pot, then straightening up in the living room. The soggy, wilted salad regrettably goes into the garbage—he knows it’s probably gross now, but he grew up poor and hates seeing food go wasted, sue him—and he picks up Carla’s jacket and shoes, stowing them away in their closet, careful not to disturb her.

But he ultimately needs to wake her to give her the medicine, which he sets off to do after making sure the soup is okay to simmer unwatched. He walks back into their bedroom and sits down on the bed again, placing his hand on what he assumes must be her shoulder and squeezing delicately. Carla grumbles and attempts to nestle deeper within the covers, but she must be even more over-sensitive than before; the movement causes her to let out a painful-sounding grunt, and her eyes fly open, wearily glancing around. They soften a bit once they land on him, but that unfortunately vanishes as soon as he opens his mouth.

“I got you a few things that’ll help with your fever and the body aches, but you have to sit up to take them,” Samuel tells her, apologetic as she prematurely grimaces at the idea. “Want me to help you?”

“No, I got it,” she manages, face creasing with discomfort when she starts to gingerly push herself up. He sympathizes with her—he doesn’t like seeing her like this, so obviously in pain.

Then the blankets slide down her front a little, and Samuel raises an eyebrow.

“Is that my hoodie?”

It’s a rhetorical question, if only because they both know Carla would never purchase an oversized, dark green pullover from a community college she definitely didn’t attend for herself. She just regularly steals it from his drawer, apparently. 

“It’s comfortable,” Carla grouses as she settles back against the pillows, propped up enough that she’s almost eye-level with him. “I told you, I was cold.”

Samuel scoffs. “Which is amazing, considering how hot you felt earlier,” he says. Miraculously, her expression turns familiarly teasing, even if it comes out a little paler than usual. He snorts a laugh through his nose, fishing one of the thermometers out of the paper bag sitting at his feet. “You know what I meant.”

She grins but otherwise doesn’t say anything else, patiently waiting as Samuel tears the box open. That’s fine, though; just seeing her smile is a relief to him.

So is the way she half-rolls her eyes toward the ceiling when he gestures for her to open her mouth, the corners of her lips twitching like she thinks this is ridiculous—which, since she actually had called it ridiculous earlier, is probably exactly what’s going through her head. Her gaze shoots back to him as he slips the end of the thermometer beneath her tongue, apparently having seen his own grin in her peripheral.

“You make an adorable patient,” he notes.

Carla flips him off, expression narrowed, and Samuel snickers. The thermometer beeps a second later, so he takes it out and reads the display, frowning. 

“Yeah, you’re definitely coming down with something.”

“What?” She asks, voice rough with both disbelief and another shiver. “Let me see.”

He gives her an exasperated look. “ _Why_ would I lie to you?”

Instead of answering, she holds her hand out in expectation, rapidly growing impatient. Samuel sighs and places the plastic stick in her palm. He studiously observes her as she scowls at the straightforward _101.4_ -degree temperature reading on the tiny screen, feeling amusement tug at his mouth in spite of it.

She scoffs, tossing the thing back in his general direction before crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at some random point on the wall. “Whatever, it must be faulty.”

“ _Carla_ ,” he says in an attempt to get her to look at him. It doesn’t work, so he places a hand on the mattress on her other side and leans over so that he’s at least somewhat in her vision. “What is it? This isn’t just about you supposedly never getting sick.”

“I _don’t_ get sick,” she insists haughtily, turning to him, which he expected. She relents under his triumphant smile with a small, tired exhale, her shoulders slumping. “I have a shit ton of work to do. I can’t afford to stay home for a few days, lying in bed.”

Ah. He should’ve known. For someone who’s never had a job before becoming a literal CEO, she can surprisingly be a bit of a workaholic. Much to his chagrin, sometimes.

“Valerio can handle it by himself for a while,” Samuel says, simply and staunchly. She opens her mouth to argue, and he carefully circles her wrist with his fingers. “And if he can’t, then Yeray will help him. But seriously, can you name something Valerio hasn’t been able to deal with on his own?”

She hesitates. Then, reluctantly, “...No.”

“Exactly.” He releases her wrist to cup the side of her face, letting her lean into his palm at a speed that doesn’t make her uncomfortable. She shuts her eyes momentarily, but the sigh she lets out now is more content than anything. “If you’re a good patient, you’ll be back to work as soon as possible.”

Carla smiles. “I thought I was already a good patient?”

“I said, ‘adorable’. That’s not the same thing,” he laughs. He checks his watch, getting back up to his feet. “Speaking of.”

He ignores Carla’s confused expression as he retreats down the hall and into the kitchen, stirring the soup and tasting it to see if it needs anything else. After he’s sure that it’s done, he ladles a bit into a bowl and carries it back to the bedroom, a dish towel providing a barrier against the heat so that he doesn’t burn himself. Already on the verge of sleep again, Carla watches him through half-lidded eyes, then turns her nose up a bit when she realizes what he’s holding.

“You need to eat something,” he insists before she can protest. “You shouldn’t take any pills on an empty stomach.”

“I had a salad,” she attempts weakly.

“Do you mean the mostly untouched container I had to throw out?” She winces, caught. “Just have a few bites, at least. I bought crackers while I was at the store.”

“Fine,” she mutters after a moment. Samuel comes over as she sits up a little more, spreading her legs so that the array of blankets creates a well for him to set the bowl down in. She seems to like the warmth, but clearly tries not to let Samuel see so that he doesn’t turn smug again; he humors her by pretending like he doesn’t notice, reaching back into the paper bag to fetch the box of plain crackers he’d picked up, as well as a sports drink and the pair of pill bottles that he sets on the nightstand. 

He watches as she shakily brings up a spoonful of soup to her lips, blowing on it delicately. When she swallows it down, he raises his eyebrows in question. “Good?”

Carla shrugs. “I can’t really taste it,” she admits, then cocks her head. “Although, considering what your cooking normally tastes like, that’s probably for the best.”

“Maybe you really aren’t that sick, actually. You’re apparently well enough to insult me still.”

“See? Told you.”

Samuel chuckles and shakes his head, opening the sleeve of crackers and placing a few on the corner of the dish towel. Carla wrinkles her nose at the crumbs, but he just glances at her pointedly in return, because it’s not like he isn’t going to wash the sheets and all one thousand of her blankets once she’s feeling better, anyway. 

After she makes at least a small dent into the soup and has swallowed down a couple of crackers—with a rather childish, _look, are you happy?_ expression, he might add—Samuel uncaps the sports drink and shakes two pills from either of the acetaminophen and ibuprofen bottles into his palm, handing them over for Carla to take. She blanches a little as they go down her throat, much harder than mushy crackers or bite-sized chicken breast and vegetables, and Samuel suspects that she’s definitely going to need those cough drops, if not something stronger, sooner or later. 

He grabs the drink from her when she’s done and places it back on the nightstand, doing the same with the bowl of soup since it’s apparent that she’d only eaten to appease him until he deemed it safe for her to take the medicine. She shifts so she’s lying down on her side facing him and burrows into the nest of blankets and pillows; her eyes fall shut again, but her fingers find his hand and trace the back of it. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

“Of course. Do you want me to leave?”

She shakes her head tiredly. “No, stay. Please.”

“Okay,” Samuel says. He toes off his shoes, then stands to take off the suit he never actually bothered to change out of past hanging up his coat and tie in the closet when he was putting Carla’s clothes away. To be honest, he’d forgotten he was even still in his work attire, but now that his evening is starting to wind back down he feels his own tiredness washing over him and can’t get out of them fast enough. He strips down until he’s just in his undershirt and boxers, leaving his dress shirt and pants in a puddle on the floor to be taken care of later, and walks around the bed to crawl in behind his girlfriend. 

It’s super fucking warm, way too hot for his normal preferences, but he’s also gotten used to the fact that Carla’s almost always cold—he can deal. She blindly reaches back for him when she feels the mattress dip under his weight, apparently too sore or sleepy to actually roll over. Samuel correctly assumes that she wants him to cuddle her, because when he scoots closer and presses his chest to her back, she melts into him with a sigh.

She doesn’t say anything, and several minutes pass where Samuel figures she’s fallen asleep. But then he feels her hand brush the arm he has draped over her waist, accompanied by a half-conscious hum. “You’re probably going to get sick too.”

“Probably,” he responds flippantly, kissing the back of her head. “Get some rest.”

Carla doesn’t need to be told twice, obliging almost instantly. Now that it’s quiet enough, he can hear a slight rattle underlying each breath she takes, and he makes a mental note to shoot back over to the store tomorrow to pick up some decongestion medicine before beginning to doze off himself. He doesn’t mean to—when he checked his watch earlier it’d only been a few minutes past seven—but he doesn’t want to chance disturbing Carla again and, regardless, he’s too comfortable to move. 

He sleeps until his body just can’t take the heat anymore, waking up clammy and with long, golden strands of hair stuck in his mouth. Carla’s barely budged an inch; however, she’s also gotten impossibly warmer, so Samuel eases out of bed and discards a few of the blankets so that she doesn’t end up dehydrated by sweating out what little liquid she has in her system. It’s too dark now for him to see his watch, but a cursory glance at his phone tells him that it’s nearing two in the morning; his sleep schedule is bound to get even more fucked up within the next few days, but luckily it’s the weekend, so he’s off. He’ll call in sick himself if he needs to come Monday, even though he knows Carla will most definitely argue against him skipping work just to take care of her.

Well, tough shit. He loves her, he does, though sometimes her habit of doing everything herself can get frustrating. He knows it has to do with her poor excuse for parents: he above most is aware of the type of independence that growing up alone and fending for yourself instills in a child, rich or poor. But where his mom was loving, nurturing, and tried her best to be there for him when she could, Carla’s mom and dad were mostly distant, both physically and emotionally. She didn’t have siblings either, not like he had Nano; she was well and truly alone, so she’s used to taking things into her own hands. Having control. Something she also lost when her parents were putting her through all that bullshit in high school... but they’re no longer in her life, and she has Samuel, she has their friends. She doesn’t have to internalize all of her issues anymore.

To her credit, she’s way better than she used to be. Nowadays she’ll talk to him if something’s wrong—still, trying to brush off what he’s pretty sure might be the flu just because she can’t sit idle for a couple of days and let herself be looked after is ridiculous. 

Samuel goes about cleaning some more, dealing with his now-wrinkled suit and then heading into the kitchen to wash dishes and put the leftover soup away. He also reheats some Chinese food they ordered in a few nights ago when his stomach loudly reminds him that he hasn’t eaten anything since lunch, and he’s in the middle of stuffing his face and idly scrolling on his phone when a round of harsh coughing rings out from the direction of the bedroom.

When he walks in with a glass of water, Carla’s hunched over the side of the bed and hacking wetly into her hand. She makes a miserable sound as he flicks on the lamp and sits down, but otherwise takes the water from him wordlessly. She drinks it in its entirety, a couple droplets darkening the fabric of his hoodie in her carelessness, but he doesn’t mind. He just tucks her hair behind her ears, then trades her the empty glass for a cough drop once she’s finished. 

“I haven’t gone through this since I was six,” she says, sounding hoarse. She looks mad, which he still finds adorable, though he opts to keep this to himself so he doesn’t piss her off even more. “It fucking sucks.”

“You seriously never get sick? Not even back in school?”

Carla shakes her head. “Only if I was faking, for whatever reason.” 

He huffs. “Now that I really think about it, it doesn’t surprise me at all that your immune system is as resilient as you are.” 

He means it as a joke, but Carla softens like she does sometimes when he says something particularly honest, and then she scrunches her nose. “Stop making me want to kiss you. I’m disgusting right now.”

Samuel grins, already bracketing her with his arms and leaning down. “I think pigs will fly before that ever becomes true. Also, I don’t care.”

“You’re going to get sick,” she argues, weakly bringing up a hand to his chest in an attempt to stop him from coming any closer. 

“So you’ve said already,” he replies. “But now I’m almost positive that you have the flu, and _I_ remembered to get my shot.”

Carla pauses for a brief moment before she shuts her eyes with a groan, sinking into the pillows. “Shit. I forgot.”

“I know.”

“I’ve been so busy with the wineries—”

“Yeah, I know,” he repeats, pointedly this time.

“Just—shut up and kiss me,” Carla orders with a tiny scowl, and he laughs even as he obeys, slanting his lips over her own. 

The kiss is soft and unhurried, nothing more; while Samuel had been serious about not minding her general state—and just as serious about her looking gorgeous even with a fever above one-hundred—he doesn’t want to make her too uncomfortable. He balances himself on his hands, careful not to put too much weight on her and ignoring how his back is protesting with the way it’s twisted from his seat on the edge of the mattress. Once they part, Carla lets out a small, satisfied hum and slowly blinks her eyes open to look up at him.

“Breakfast?” He asks, pecking the tip of her nose when she wrinkles it again. 

“It’s the middle of the night.” 

He has to admit, it’s a very convenient excuse to hide the fact that she doesn’t want to eat. Still, he relents, at least for now. 

“Fine, but as soon as the sun’s up? Food.”

Carla rolls her eyes, voice turning sarcastic. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Dr. Samuel.” She suddenly giggles. “That sounds like a porn name.”

He flops down beside her, laughing too. “I’m a little short for a porn star, no?”

“Hmm. But not lacking anywhere else,” she teases, gingerly shifting over to curl into his side. Another cough-and-shudder combo wracks through her, and Samuel reaches down for one of the blankets, pulling it up around her shoulders. 

They talk lowly about what’s going on at each other’s jobs, not really having had time over the last week to catch up because of how busy they’ve both been. She and Valerio are working on a brand revamp, wanting to modernize, which Samuel already knew—but the investors are giving them a hard time, old traditionalists that they are. However, he’s sure she’ll eventually win them over; she’s certainly inherited her dad’s business-sharp mind, which is the one good thing Samuel can say about him. Even still, Carla deserves all the credit: she takes no shit, and he knows all too well how convincing she is when she wants to be.

Samuel himself has been working on the same case for the last few months, a pro-bono for a family admittedly similar to his own. Progress has been slower than he’d like, but they’re also dealing with a system that doesn’t favor people from his class, innocent or not. It’s a battle Samuel has fought nearly his entire life.

But he’s never been one to give up, something Carla tiredly snorts in agreement with.

“It’ll play out in your favor though,” she murmurs quietly, on the verge of falling back asleep for the third time tonight. Her eyes are already closed, words somewhat slurred. “I know how hard you’ve been working on it.”

He smiles to himself, holding her closer in lieu of replying. Her breath evens out—that is, as much as it can, all things considered—a few seconds later. She snoozes over the next couple of hours, periodically waking up in more coughing fits that leave her clutching tightly at the front of Samuel’s shirt as he rubs light, smoothing circles on her back. He doesn’t even need to wake her when the sun comes up because she does so on her own accord, abruptly and violently, and he isn’t sure whether she’s trembling so hard because of the coughing or because she’s cold. He does know that she’s getting worse, though.

A re-checking of her temperature unfortunately proves him right; it’s gone up another degree, which is a bit worrying, but this could also just be the fever reaching its peak. He silently resolves to take her to the hospital tomorrow if she gets even _more_ worse by then, but for now he goes back to the store and picks up some more things that’ll hopefully prevent that from happening.

Carla’s drenched in sweat when he returns, but still shaking as if the apartment isn’t completely sweltering. She flinches away from the cold towel he attempts to put over her forehead and refuses to touch either the new glass of water or hot tea he brings her, miserably drawing her knees to her chest on the middle of the mattress. Samuel watches her for all of ten seconds, then comes to a grim decision. 

“You should take a shower.” Her eyes fly open, as terrified at the thought as they are green, and she immediately shakes her head in adamant objection. He doesn’t doubt that she’d even move away from him, if she could manage it. “It’ll help shock your body temperature back to normal,” he tries to assure her.

“ _No_ ,” she moans.

He sighs and braces a knee on the mattress anyway. “Carla...”

“Samuel, don’t even think about it.”

“Come on. You’ll feel better afterwards, I promise.”

She complains in both protest and pain when he scoops her into his arms, but she’s also too weak to squirm out of his grasp, instead balling up against his chest. Samuel murmurs apologies as he carefully carries her to the bathroom, setting her down on the closed toilet lid once they get there so that he can switch on the water. While the steam from a hot shower would definitely help with her cough, a cold one is much better suited for resetting a body temperature, though it’ll also probably be excruciating for her. He doesn’t want to subject her to that, so he elects to settle in the middle, dialing it to lukewarm.

Carla’s pale and feeble-looking when he turns back around. The last time he saw her like this had been in high school when she was coming down off drugs, and that thought just makes his chest twinge, so he pads over and helps her to her feet, letting her lean against the sink when it becomes obvious that she’s not going to be able to stand herself. He yanks his own clothes off first just so that she doesn’t have to wait for him, naked and shivering, then gingerly peels the hoodie off of her, removing the camisole it reveals after. Next go her shorts and underwear, and he tosses them into the laundry bin with the other garments before maneuvering her beneath the shower’s spray.

She instantly cries out, jerking as it hits her back even though he’d made sure to put it on the lowest setting. He softly shushes her, soothing and automatic, reaching for the shampoo bottle—which is a task to do at the same time as keeping her upright—and squirts some into his palm.

“I know, baby, I’m sorry. It’s okay,” he says, massaging the shampoo into her hair as gently as possible while also trying to be quick and efficient. The latter means that he forgoes conditioner, and he shifts them around until their positions are flipped as soon as he’s got her hair rinsed, his body shielding her from the water so that he can wash her own.

A sponge would be preferable, but they don’t have one, so he uses his hands because he figures they’ll cause her less discomfort than the loofah hanging from the wall would. She still whimpers and buries her face in his neck regardless, all but collapsed against him, and he doesn’t doubt that his touch probably feels like sandpaper on her skin, no matter how light he’s keeping it. He kisses her temple and focuses on lathering her up, then has to wrap an arm around her waist to secure her while he scrubs furiously at his scalp and skin. He probably does a really shitty job, but this isn’t really about his own hygiene, so whatever. Getting Carla clean and back into bed is his top priority, at the moment.

When he’s done he helps her step out of the shower but leaves it running still, cranking it as high as it’ll go to build up some steam. He wraps her in her robe and eases her back onto the toilet, then ties a towel around his hips.

“I’m going to get some clothes. Think you can sit here by yourself for a few?”

She nods wordlessly, the movement her hand makes with it so slight that it barely constitutes as a shooing motion. He delicately squeezes her fingers and ducks out, making quick work of throwing on a t-shirt and pajama pants, changing the bed’s sheets, and gathering some things for Carla to wear as well. By the time he gets back, she’s lying on the floor, curled up on the bath rug. 

To be honest, it makes a beat of panic shoot through him, but then he deduces that she probably moved there because it was more comfortable than the toilet. Her eyes open somewhat once she hears him come in, so Samuel shuts the shower off before helping her stand and get dressed. He brushes her hair and ties it back damp, which she’ll probably have something to say about later once she doesn’t look like she’s about to shiver out of her skin or keel over right then and there. For now, she just silently lets him walk her to their room, and he thinks the fact that she doesn’t need to be carried again is a good sign, at the very least.

He makes her toast that she reluctantly swallows down along with some more medicine and orange juice, tucking herself into his side again when she’s done. Her shivering has gotten a little milder, hardly noticeable through the layer of the shirt he’s wearing and the fresh hoodie he’d zipped her up in. Samuel presses his lips to the top of her head.

“Better now?”

She makes a soft noise of affirmation. Then, “I’m still mad at you, though.”

He chuckles. “You’ll thank me for it later. Wanna watch Netflix?”

Carla nods, and he grabs his laptop from his nightstand and boots up the app. She doesn’t give any requests, so he just picks something from his list and hits play. 

A tiny groan escapes her, making him grin. “You’ve seen this movie so many times.”

“That’s because it’s a classic.”

“It’s a _cartoon_.”

“Into the Spider-Verse is an _Oscar-winning_ cartoon, thank you very much,” he counters. “Anyway, you know you love it, and you also love Gwen. So, be quiet.”

“Do you talk to all your patients this way? I’m going to sue this hospital for all it’s worth.”

“How heartless. You don’t need the money.”

She giggles, coughing a little near the end, but thankfully doesn’t descend into another fit. They watch in contented silence, and thirty minutes in the drowsy medication he’d given her does its work, because Samuel looks down to find her snoring lightly, lips parted on his chest. 

He lets her sleep throughout the day, figuring she needs rest more than anything else now. He takes advantage of the solitude to text Yeray and Valerio, letting them know what’s up, then tries to get a little work done to busy himself. Eventually he just crashes next to her, however; eyes going crossed under the combined strain of staring at a computer screen and exhaustion. 

The next two days pass just like that: nursing his girlfriend—who decides how compliant she wants to be based on how well she’s feeling—back to health, watching movies or working, passing out at odd hours, then repeating it all over again. He does end up calling out of work on Monday, and, as expected, Carla tries her damndest to get him to change his mind. If he gives her a stronger dose than usual just so she’ll drop it and knock out, then she doesn’t need to know that. 

He begrudgingly goes back to work Tuesday though, because her fever has begun to go down and she’s mostly capable of moving around the apartment by herself again. As much as he wants to text her every waking minute to make sure she’s okay, he also doesn’t want to be overbearing, and the temptation isn’t all that hard to avoid considering the fact that he spends the rest of the week swamped with casework. By Friday, he comes home worn down to his bones, looking forward to his days off again especially since Carla’s almost back at one-hundred percent. 

She’s standing at the kitchen sink washing her hands when he opens the door, wearing a plain shirt and pair of shorts because he’d managed to convince her to stay home until the weekend was finished. He walks over to her and wraps his arms around her waist, burying his face in the nape of her neck and slumping against the soft line of her back. She huffs amusedly, and he feels her drying her hands before they come to rest over his forearms.

“Long day?”

“I want to get sick now, I need a week off too,” he mumbles, making her laugh through her nose. 

“You don’t want to get sick. I’d make an even shittier nurse than you are a chef.”

“I’m too tired to be offended by that,” he says, but he smiles a little. A moment later he musters up the strength to lean back, and Carla turns in his arms, hand rising to cup his cheek. Her thumb quietly rasps over his stubble as he languidly looks her over, lips twitching as she indulges him. Her face is back to it’s normal color, she’s even got makeup on, but she also just seems less stressed than she had before she got the flu. It makes him soften, at least somewhat. “You look good.”

She raises her eyebrows, teasing. “Are you coming on to me? I thought you were tired.” He chuckles, and she becomes genuine. “I feel much better now.”

“I know. But no, I meant… you look brighter. More relaxed.”

“Well, I’ve got a boyfriend who might’ve helped with that.”

“He sounds pretty amazing.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll keep him,” she shrugs casually, smiling. “Maybe he’s right whenever he says that taking off work every now and then won’t kill me.”

Samuel blinks slowly, pretending to be shocked. “Wow, it only took a fever nearly doing just that to get you to listen. And you call me hard-headed.”

To be a brat, she forms a fist and knocks gently on his forehead. “Still are. Can’t argue with the evidence.”

“I’m a lawyer. That’s _literally_ what I do.”

Carla unwinds his arms from around her waist so that she can slide their palms together, dragging him over to the couch. “And I own a handful of wineries. So when I say to sit and drink this garnacha with me while we wait for the pizza I ordered just before you arrived, you have to listen.”

She pushes him down without waiting for his response, straddling his lap. Her nimble fingers loosen his tie and undo the first couple of buttons on his shirt; not enough to lead him to believe that they actually are gonna delve into sex, but just so that he’s more comfortable. He _is_ , and he’s also content. She smiles softly, combing her hands through his hair, then tips his head back in a way that forces his eyes open to gaze up at her.

“Thank you.”

“You’re sitting in my lap, giving me a massage, and yet _I’m_ the one being shown gratitude,” he remarks dubiously.

She rolls her eyes, fond. “For taking care of me, stupid.”

“You already thanked me, remember?” She sighs. It sounds both exasperated and playful, like she’s saying, _Samuel, quit being a charming idiot and just accept it,_ so he does. “You’re welcome.”

Despite how fatigued he is, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it all over again. 


	4. 4+1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He stares at her, patient, calmer now, and she’s known for a while that the two of them have traveled far off the path that they started down. She’s probably known since the night of the red party; she wonders if anything would be different if she’d gotten up and left instead of falling asleep in his arms. She wonders if he would even still be here now.
> 
> She wonders if she would even know what she’d be missing, if not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i know it says 4+1 and it IS supposed to be like four times they shared a bed or something similar to one but then that didn’t really happen and i just wanted to get this posted. also i loosely played with the s3 timeline because i couldn’t be bothered to rewatch that torture and canon is mine now anyway. not a prompt fill this time around, i needed to write something for inspo, but hope y’all like it all the same <3

The couch’s cushions are sunken in with years and years of use. They’re also stained in some places; a splotch the color of wine here, something white and dubious there, but considering what they’ve just done on the thing, Carla supposes she’s hardly in a place to complain. It’s a narrow piece of furniture—so narrow that it warrants Samuel having to hold her close with an arm around her waist to keep her from falling right off the edge, and she doesn’t know exactly why they hadn’t gone to his room, except that, also, a little part of her does. 

They’d stumbled into Samuel’s apartment in a tangle of arms and legs and tongues, breaths mingling, hands wandering, and somewhere in the back of Carla’s mind, she’d thought, _this is a lot_. It was only her second time with a boy she’d hardly paid any attention to before he deemed it necessary by asking stupid questions whose answers lay right under his nose, and yet her blood had sang as he pushed her up against the wall dividing the kitchen and grazed his fingers down her hips. It was distracting. It was dizzying. It was a lot.

Too much. But it was also easy to blame that all on everything else and not on how intensely Samuel did or didn’t make her feel, and it was easy to shrug him out of his plain jacket and then peel him out of his uglier shirt, push him down onto the ottoman near the window, and appreciate how the moonlight cut across his abs and their spit on his bottom lip. 

Somewhere in the middle, sometime after she’d thought _this is a lot_ for the hundredth time and said _it’s weird, no?_ for the first, they’d ended up on the couch. And now here Carla is, her back pressed to Samuel’s front, feeling his steady heart thumping against her spine. Their legs are entwined, their heads are sharing the same pillow. Carla has no fucking idea how she’s not uncomfortable, but she isn’t. 

Samuel’s lips graze the nape of her neck just slightly, and she has no clue why she isn’t at all. 

Because it _is_ weird. The two of them, in this apartment. The two of them, period. What the hell is she even still doing here? They had their fun, Samuel’s too fucked out to bother with his amateur investigation at the moment, and now her job’s done, at least, for now. She should go home. 

Almost like he knows what’s going through her head, Samuel’s arm squeezes around her midsection. “What are you thinking so hard about?”

He sounds half-asleep already, voice low and gravelly. She’s just glad that he can’t see her face, because it makes her smile a little. 

Honesty works with him, she knows, but honesty is something she only offers when the light is hitting him just right, when he’s looking at her just so, or when she’s drunk. So she lies, smile morphing into a smirk. “What I’m going to wear tomorrow.”

“Yeah, must be a real tough decision, having to pick between a blue or gray blazer.”

“Some of us like to accessorize beyond fifty beaded bracelets and a cheap silver chain, Samuel.”

He laughs, a soft, quiet thing huffed against her skin; he seems to like it when she teases him, flirts with the right side of _too mean_ before drifting away, and she likes that he likes it. She’s grinning.

And then she isn’t, because a handful of seconds later, he murmurs, “My mom won’t be back until the morning,” and she’s aware of exactly what he’s getting at. 

Maybe he _did_ know what she’d been thinking about, after all, and was just asking because he wanted to see if she’d actually tell him. He seems to like doing that, too—however, it only works on her under the same circumstances where she’s willing to offer up honesty. 

“How lonely for you,” she says, evading. 

She feels him shrug. “You get used to it.” His voice turns knowing; he sees through her entirely too well for someone who’s made her come more times than they’ve had an actual conversation. “Right?”

He’s caught her. Not like in the club’s bathroom, not in the way where she slipped up and fell into his trap and barely weaseled her way out. He’s caught her and he knows it, and she knows that despite the lack of everything, _honesty_ is the only way forward.

Far too quietly, she mutters, “Yeah.”

Samuel doesn’t get smug like someone normally would when they’ve won something. He just holds her closer. “So, stay. It’s late.”

And Carla doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t move either.

It’s the first time since before Marina that she actually gets a good night’s sleep.

*

“You’re not bad, you know,” Carla says out of nowhere a couple weeks later.

Her hair is falling over her face, but through the strands and out of her peripheral she can see Samuel looking at her. Even if she couldn’t, she’d definitely feel it—she always feels it when his eyes are on her, and she hasn’t decided whether or not she likes it yet, except that, also, a little part of her already has. 

His gaze slides down to where she brings up a pink-painted fingernail to tap at a drawing in the margin of his math notebook. It’s an astronaut done in ballpoint pen, sitting on the edge of a compass-drawn circle that’s supposed to be part of the notes they’d taken during today’s lecture. Now that she thinks about it, she’s pretty sure she’d seen him sketching it from a few seats over, his cheek resting in the palm of his hand. 

“Are you actually paying me a compliment?”

She tucks her hair behind her ear so that he can see how she rolls her eyes. “It isn’t too late for me to take it back.” He laughs, pupils disappearing behind those annoyingly thick lashes of his. She can’t help but smile with him. “But seriously, you’re pretty good.”

“Thanks,” he replies, ducking his head sheepishly. Carla thinks it's cute, but she keeps that to herself. “They’re just doodles, though.”

“If they were just doodles, you wouldn’t have them hung up all around your room.” She gestures around them for emphasis, then points at the giant thing pushed beneath the window. “Or a literal drafting table.”

Samuel shrugs. “It’s not like I can pursue it as a career or anything.”

“Why not?”

He gives her a pointed look. “Doesn’t exactly pay the bills.”

“Well, I think you’re good enough to do something with it,” she says, quietly enjoying how his cheeks color a shade. Teasingly, she sighs, “But if you’d rather not be a cliché starving artist, who am I to stop you?”

“Thank you for being so understanding,” he chuckles dryly. 

They pick their pencils back up, returning to their homework. Just sitting in silence is normally comfortable with him in a way that had surprised her at first—and, frankly, still does if she thinks about it for too long—but she can sense his distraction. The muscle in his thigh tenses where it’s barely touching her own, and he’s hovering the tip of his pencil over his notebook, not writing anything. Most of all, she can feel him looking at her again, but she lets him speak himself instead of prompting him to.

“You know,” he starts after a few beats, “I could draw you. If… if you want.”

Her eyebrows drift upwards, and she slowly turns her head to face him. “Seriously?”

Another shrug and he shakes his head dismissively, already shifting his attention back down. “Never mind, we should fin—”

“Okay,” she cuts him off, making him pause.

“Okay?”

“Draw me.” 

He blinks. “Are you sure?”

Carla resists rolling her eyes again, if only because he really does seem shy—and it’s odd, because for someone who can be so quiet, he’s also extremely forward. He doesn’t beat around the bush or play their game nearly as much as she does; he isn’t _coy_. It’s just not him.

But as she leans over to take his notebook out of his grasp after closing her own, she realizes that this is just a new part of him that she’s seeing. The Samuel beneath it all, the one she’s been catching more and more glimpses of in his boyish laughs and dimpled smiles and macaroni dinners. 

She rubs her lips together, restraining herself, and sets the notebooks down on his nightstand. “Yeah, why not?”

“It’ll probably be boring.”

“Nothing can be more boring than math,” she counters, and it draws one of those laughs out of him, and her chest warms a bit. She smiles, quirking an eyebrow. “Well, do you want to, or no?”

Their faces are mere inches apart, Carla’s practically in his lap, and instead of answering outright Samuel just brushes their lips together before slipping off the bed. She watches, vaguely amused, as he pads over to where his backpack is slumped over in his desk chair, digging out a worn leather journal. He sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed in favor of climbing back into his spot next to her when he returns, and she stretches out against the pillows, biting her lip to suppress her grin. 

Weirdly, she’s excited. She hides it by teasing him.

“Should I take off my clothes? I’ve never seen _Titanic_ , but I know there’s a joke to be made somewhere.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re already naked when he starts drawing her,” Samuel says with a snort.

“Oh, so you’ve seen it?” Carla delights in the way his ears redden. He grumbles something, and she bumps his knee with her foot. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

He catches her ankle in his hand and tugs gently, chastising. “You can keep your clothes on,” he says pointedly.

“No fun.”

He beams. “Told you it’d be boring. Now, get comfortable.”

She already is, and not just in the way that he means—but that thought is as dangerous as it is fleeting, so she pushes it aside and shifts up until her back is pressed to the headboard. Samuel flips open the sketchbook to a blank page, glancing up at her thoughtfully; she half-expects him to pose her, but after a second he just smiles and begins to work.

Neither of them talk as the minutes tick by, even though Carla’s sure he could manage sketching and having a conversation at the same time. Like she said though, she’s used to sitting in silence with him, so she doesn’t feel the need to fill it. She contents herself with observing him, knowing that her eyes betray nothing whenever he looks back up at her for reference and finds her staring, knowing that he has no clue just how much she loves to see him like this. In the mid-afternoon light shining into his tiny room, he looks so young. She reminds herself that they _are_ young, but with how the sunlight crowns his head and circles him in a buttery puddle of color, he looks young in the way that someone who is ageless would. Angelic, almost. 

Then he pops his mouth open in concentration, purses his lips, gets a little furrow between his eyebrows… and it looks sort of cute, sort of ridiculous, and he’s no angel. He’s just Samuel. 

She doesn’t know which one’s worse for her, in the long run.

Instead of trying to figure it out she just snickers at his expression, poorly stifled in the palm of her hand and making his eyes dart to her. They narrow as soon as he realizes that she’s making fun of him, then he sets the pad aside so that he can crawl up the bed. Carla smirks, doesn’t budge an inch, and lifts her chin in a challenge as he leans in close, hands braced on either side of her hips.

“I don’t think you’re finished,” she tuts, but doesn’t argue any further.

She just laughs against Samuel’s mouth and slides her fingers into his sun-warmed hair. 

*

The thing is, Samuel hasn’t ever been to her house, and she likes it that way. 

It’s not that she’s embarrassed by him; she isn’t ashamed of whatever it is that they’re doing, in spite of how closely-kept it is. But her house isn’t like Samuel’s. It isn’t cozy and inviting, it isn’t cluttered with furniture and wall decorations, it isn’t anywhere close to feeling like a home at all, and if she can help it, she’d rather not spend any more time here than is strictly necessary. 

But Nano is evidently out on bail now, and Carla’s not stupid enough to show up at the apartment with him around. Samuel’s probably got his hands full with keeping him on a tight leash, regardless. 

So, needless to say, she’s more than a little surprised when he shows up at her front door that afternoon instead.

She’s also somewhat irritated—it flares inside of her as soon as Mirella informs her that there’s a boy here to see her, and for some reason Carla instantly knows that it’s him. She doesn’t want her father to catch him here, but Samuel can’t possibly know that or her reasons why; she reminds herself that it isn’t his fault. Mirella won’t tell anyway, so Carla smiles and gives the woman her thanks, tries to tamper down her sudden emotion, and slips out into the foyer.

Her annoyance is almost immediately diminished once she lays eyes on him; he looks tired, and not because of the long school day, but _weary_. And just like how she knew it’d been him, she also immediately understands why he’s here now.

Samuel doesn’t really smile as much as he stretches his lips apologetically as she descends the stairs. “Hey, sorry,” he says lowly, like he doesn’t want his voice to echo back at him in the tall entryway. “I should’ve texted, but…”

He starts a vague gesture, and Carla slips her hand into his. “Come.”

She leads him back upstairs, down the hall, into her room. When she turns around from shutting the door, he’s standing in front of her bed, facing away from her, and looking around curiously. It’s odd: her room is bigger and filled with nicer things, but she likes his better, and she wonders if he does too. She also feels a tad defensive, however, wanting his approval—and it’s _odd_ because that’s something Carla has never sought from anybody before.

Samuel sits down on the foot of her bed without asking, and she masks how pleased that makes her feel by clearing her throat and walking over. 

“Sorry,” he repeats as she comes to a stop before him. “I just… didn’t wanna go home yet.”

“I get it,” Carla replies, because like she said—she’d understood. She swallows, knowing she should ask and knowing even more than it’s not her place to act like his shoulder to cry on, at least not with this, but, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She doesn’t know whether or not to be relieved when he shakes his head, so she just runs her fingertips over the shell of his ear. He exhales softly, looks up at her, and his eyes are even softer. “No. Just want to be with you.”

Every part of Carla pauses—her breathing, her movements, her heartbeat—because Samuel has no pre-set requirements for dishing out honesty. He just _does._ He does it so easily, and Carla envies him for it. She could even hate him for it, except that, also, a very large part of her can’t whatsoever.

He stares at her, patient, calmer now, and she’s known for a while that the two of them have traveled far off the path that they started down. She’s probably known since the night of the red party; she wonders if anything would be different if she’d gotten up and left instead of falling asleep in his arms. She wonders if he would even still be here now.

She wonders if she would even know what she’d be missing, if not.

Carla finds herself smiling a soft, barely-there thing, and then she finds herself parting his legs with her knee so that she can stand between them. He doesn’t look away from her. He just rests his chin on her stomach and blinks up at her with eyes so open and unguarded that, if she let herself, she could read in them just about anything her heart desired. Lately, it’s been desiring a lot. Too much.

Maybe it’s a good thing that Samuel lifts his arms up to wrap around her legs and instead winces when his knuckles brush the backs of her thighs then, interrupting her train of thought. He doesn’t fight her as she brings his hand around to inspect what’s hurting him, but once she gets a good look at his swollen knuckle and meets his gaze, he does sheepishly glance away.

“What happened?” 

He gives a slight shrug. “I was mad. Didn’t want to hit my brother, so I hit something else.”

She hums, reproachful. “Well, at least it isn’t your other hand, this time.” He huffs in agreement as they both recall the same memory. She’d shown up to his place then without warning, just like how he’d turned up here just a few minutes ago, and Carla caresses his current injury just as tenderly as she traced her fingers along the tightly-secured bandage wrapped around his palm that night. She sets his hand down on his knee, though, as she gets an idea. “I’ll be right back.”

Samuel doesn’t question her while she slips out the door and lets it softly click shut behind her. She pads down the stairs, Mirella nowhere to be found when she gets to the kitchen. That’s fine, though. Carla’s perfectly capable of collecting what she needs on her own, so it’s not like she was going to ask her for anything, anyway, and she makes quick work of it before heading back to her room. Samuel’s no longer sitting when she returns, but inspecting the few framed photographs she has lined up on her dresser.

“Some of them don’t make it to my Instagram,” she jokes, coming up beside him. 

The corner of his lips tip in a smirk, but he also lingers on the one picture of her and Polo she hasn’t removed yet. In her defense, she’d simply forgotten to—she doesn’t spend a lot of time here these days, and if she does, it’s just to sleep or get ready. But there’s a slight clench in Samuel’s jaw, and she isn’t sure if it’s stemming from jealousy or something else, something that she really doesn’t want him to start delving into right now. 

What Samuel doesn’t know is that she still has that selfie they’d taken together at the bar sitting in her photo album. It’s the only picture she’s taken that hasn’t ended up framed or on her social media, and what Samuel _doesn’t know_ is how that means something different altogether. 

Sometimes, she’ll open it up and just… look at it. He certainly doesn’t need to know that, either.

The inhale Carla takes is so quiet that she’s positive he can’t hear it, or the way it sounds shaky. To distance herself—the both of them—from pictures and thoughts alike, she picks up his hand and pulls him back over to the bed, settling next to him when he pliantly sits down on the edge.

She carefully places the bag of ice she’d retrieved over his knuckle. He blanches slightly, and then she glances up at him once she senses his eyes on her for too long of a moment afterwards. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says simply. “You continue to surprise me, that’s all.”

Carla knows the feeling. Wordlessly, she coaxes him into lying down with her.

“I don’t want to go home,” he breathes out again, because they both know that he should. 

There are far too many things she and Samuel should do actually, but thus far, Carla has ignored every single one of them. “So, stay. For now.”

He doesn’t reply.

She shuts her eyes as he brushes her hair away from her forehead, and when she blinks them open an hour later, he’s already gone.

*

(“You have five minutes,” Lu warns him in a low, steely voice. “Really, I have no idea why I’m even doing this.”

The last part is murmured to herself, but Samuel just barely manages to hear her over the sound of his pulse thundering in his ears. Coupled with the beeping and humming coming from the machines on either side of the bed, it’s a wonder how he even hears her at all.

But he does, and he asks himself the same exact thing as Lu slips back into the corridor to help Guzmán keep watch.

Carla lies before him, curled up on her side, hand tucked beneath her cheek. She’s completely still save for the barely-there rise and fall of her chest, the only obvious sign that she’s _alive,_ because, currently, she looks anything but. Her face is pale, her eyes are ringed with dark circles; her skin seems thin, stretched tight over her bones, and the hand she has lying palm-up on the mattress is limp. Realistically, he knows that she’s just asleep, and while he used to find it a comforting sight, now it just makes his stomach twist.

She doesn’t look peaceful or angelic beneath the artificial hospital lighting, not like she did bathed in the soft glow emanating from the lamp on his nightstand. No, she just looks frail and exhausted. Like someone who, not even twenty-four hours ago, came very close to drowning. 

Dying.

He swallows thickly—Carla could have _died_. 

He shouldn’t have left the party with Guzmán. If he had stayed, he might have been able to stop Rebe from dealing to her, or, at least, stop Carla before she went too far. If it meant she’d be in school right now instead of in this hospital, he would have done just about anything, even if he had to swallow down those fucking drugs himself.

Samuel sighs, because just a few short months ago Carla had stood across from him and said that he meant nothing to her. Never had, never will. And yet here _he_ stands, still willing to do whatever it takes to save her— _still in love with her_ —in spite of that.

He’s the world’s biggest idiot, and, as if to prove it, he steps up to the bed. Reaches out to touch her, then carefully perches on the stiff mattress instead. 

Carla doesn’t stir, not even in the slightest, so after a deep breath and a slow glance around the room, Samuel speaks.

“I know you probably don’t want me here, but I needed to see for myself that you were okay.”

He half-expects a pair of green eyes to be staring up at him when he turns his head. Carla is still fast asleep though, and he thinks back on all the times he would just watch her; how he would dread the sun rising, because then that meant she would leave, and whatever bubble they’ve managed to encase themselves in would pop until their next tryst. His time with her was always fleeting, but he savored whatever he could.

Shit, he still does. But time isn’t just fleeting now. It almost completely ran out.

“I found the dead body of my first girlfriend, my brother went to jail for her murder, one of my friends was in a crash that meant he’d never walk again. I was almost killed by a bunch of drug dealers, but when I found out you were here?” He barks out a quiet laugh, rough and humorless. “I’ve never been so scared before in my fucking life, Carla.

“And it’s stupid, because you’ve made it clear that you don’t care about me, so I shouldn’t have any reason to feel this way. None at all.” Samuel blinks, suddenly registering how his eyes are wet, and when he continues his voice just sounds as weak and brittle as Carla looks beside him. “But I do. I do, because I love you. I do, because it’s my fucking fault you’re here.”

“I let them use my house for their drug business. I could have stopped them, I _should_ have stopped them, but I didn’t. And you almost died. After everything I’ve put you through, if you _died_ because of me—”

Samuel cuts himself off, unable to finish that thought. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. The bracelets lining his forearm dig into his cheek almost painfully, and he slowly pulls his hand back to peer down at them.

He remembers what she said to him the first night she stayed over, and despite the moisture thick in his lashes and the guilt thicker in his chest, he feels a small smile tug at his lips as he also recalls what she said to him when they were lying together on his couch.

He slips one of the bracelets off, places it in her palm, then leans over to press a kiss to her hairline. “I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me, someday.”

“ _Samu_ ,” Lu hisses, her head poking back into the room. “You need to go. _Now_.”

He follows her out without any protest, and doesn’t notice the pair of green eyes watching him as he does.)

*

In her pocket, there’s a ticket to a plane she really should catch tucked between the pages of her passport.

On this couch, there’s a boy she really should save from herself who tucks his face into the nape of her neck. 

“Stay,” Samuel murmurs. “Please.”

And the couch is still the same old, ratty piece of shit. It has newer stains and memories, sure, but as she lies here between Samuel’s legs, his fingers idly toying with the beaded bracelet sliding down her wrist, she can’t find it in her to complain. She’s missed it.

She’s missed his bed, too, but she supposes they’ll get there eventually.

“Okay,” Carla says simply, easily. “I’ll stay.”


	5. under the kitchen lights, you still look like dynamite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is going as well as I expected, honestly,” Carla tuts beside him, but she doesn’t seem mad. If anything, she just looks entertained.
> 
> “I’m glad I’m living up to your expectations,” he chuckles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for: **art3mis24**
> 
> rating: mature
> 
> prompt: samuel teaching carla to cook
> 
> additional tags: implied sex but it’s even less graphic than what was in chapter 2, mostly just like sexual themes. these two have a lot of sexual tension. alsoooo this is largely plotless but it’s cute so!!!! and it’s set in s2

Despite what Samuel had said about also being able to do stuff with their clothes on, he and Carla have plenty of sex. 

Don’t get him wrong, they _do_ hang out: they watch Netflix, they study together, they eat meals at his coffee table. Sometimes they sit in comfortable, easy silence; others, they talk about deep and random shit he suspects she hasn’t ever told Lu in the same way he hasn’t ever told Omar. Since that night she stormed out of his apartment—since that night he first made her macaroni, really—Samuel can honestly say that he’s learned a lot about Carla. 

One of which is that she gets really hungry after a good fuck, which ties in directly with the “plenty of sex” thing.

Truthfully, he finds it funny. He used to think post-sex munchies was only ever something that happened in movies, but evidently not: the night he found this particular fact out about her, they’d been lying together on his couch and her stomach growled out of nowhere. It was so loud that it made both of them pause before Samuel started laughing; she’d flicked him on the shoulder for that, blamed him for working up her appetite (he’s not gonna lie, that made him feel a bit smug), then proceeded to get up and start rooting around his fridge for something to snack on. Seeing her completely naked in his kitchen did things for him, made him want to press her into the cabinets or haul her up onto the countertop altogether, but she also looked nice illuminated by the dim light of his refrigerator, and he was just content with admiring the view.

Something he unfortunately can’t do right now, because he’s not on the couch, but lying in his bed. He can hear her shuffling around, though, and it makes him grin. Before, he’d teased her on whether or not she even knew how to work a microwave (she _does_ , although hers is way more high-tech than the piece of shit he owns), and now here she is, knowing which drawer they keep their eating utensils in by heart.

He’s still smiling when Carla walks in a minute later carrying a Tupperware and a pair of forks. It only grows wider when she straddles his lap instead of resettling beside him, resting the warmed container on his bare stomach so that the both of them can pick out of it. 

“I don’t know how you stay in shape, with the amount of macaroni you consume,” she remarks lightly around a bite of the food in question. “Seriously, have you even heard of a vegetable, Samuel?”

“This has tomato in it,” he points out. 

“Tomato _sauce,_ from a can. Also, not a vegetable.”

“Well, it has onions and garlic too,” he argues. She scoffs, and when he looks up at her she’s got a tiny smirk on her lips. She also has a little sauce on her bottom one, but leaning up to lick it off would probably just be disastrous given the fact that she’s using him as both a table and chair, so he resorts to watching her do it herself instead. 

Then his eyes flit down her front, because he’s still not over the sight of her wearing his clothes. The white shirt of his school uniform is slightly big on her, the sleeves pushed up her arms and the tails riding up her thighs. And he’s perfectly aware that they have the same uniform and he sees her in her own identical button-up on a near-daily basis, but there’s just something different about knowing that this one belongs to him. Based on the way she’d glanced at him over her shoulder as she picked it up off the floor and carelessly did the buttons a few minutes ago, he’s pretty sure she knows what effect it has on him. 

“Are you checking me out?” She teases, and he’s _definitely_ sure she knows what effect it has on him.

But he likes teasing her back, so. “Checking to see if you’ve spilled any sauce on my shirt, yeah. Sloppy eater that you are.”

“Hey,” she says, but she’s biting her lip to hide her smile even as she playfully pushes against his forehead, making the forkful of pasta he was in the middle of bringing to his mouth clatter back into the Tupperware. 

“See?” He laughs. “You’re a mess _._ ”

She wipes a bit of splattered sauce from his abdomen, sucking it off her thumb while also maintaining eye contact with him. His eyes immediately transfix on the shape of her mouth again, and, well. She’s won this round, and the way her smile curls deviously around her finger tells him that she’s totally aware of it.

Samuel doesn’t mind, though. He just settles back into the pillows, one arm folded under his head while the other lies parallel with her bent leg. The low, satisfied hum Carla lets out after a few seconds probably has more to do with how he’s idly tracing his fingers along the back of her calf and not the food, but he finds himself asking, anyway.

“Good?”

“It’s certainly your speciality,” she says, tone dry. 

He smirks, because that’s not an answer, and he likes it regardless. “Perfected over the years.”

“Be honest. Is this the only dish you know how to cook?”

“No, I know how to make other stuff.” She just offers him a flat, disbelieving look in response, and Samuel pointedly adds, “Do _you_ know how to cook anything?”

“Sure.” 

It’s too easy of a reply, her expression overtly nonchalant. He decides to play along. 

“Yeah, okay. Name one.”

Carla taps her chin with a finger on one hand, twirling her fork with the other as she pretends to think about it. “I can make toast.”

“Toast,” Samuel repeats flatly.

“With butter and everything. Sometimes jam, even.”

“Wow,” he blows out on a breath, fake impressed, “You never told me you were a culinary master.”

“Well, I don’t like to brag,” Carla says with a shrug, finally breaking out into a smile when it makes Samuel laugh. She moves the container of pasta to his nightstand, evidently done for now, and absently plays with the light dusting of hair on his chest. “Who taught you how to cook?”

“Myself, mostly,” he answers, resting his hands on her thighs. “My mom’s terrible, she’d burn water if you let her, and Nano isn’t any better. Omar helped me out a little; showed me the basics, at least, but honestly, a lot of it’s just trial and error.”

“I never learned. Didn’t need to.” It’s not said haughtily, just stated like a fact. Unlike their classmates, Samuel’s noticed that she doesn’t hold her wealth or privilege over anyone’s heads, but she doesn’t try to lessen it to make people like him feel better either, not that he needs or wants her to. He likes that about her, though. “Maybe you can teach me, huh?”

“Okay.”

Carla’s gaze flicks to him, eyebrow quirking. “I wasn’t being serious.”

“I know,” he replies, because he did. But he likes the idea of cooking with Carla, and he pushes himself up on his hands, her own sliding down his front with the movement. He drags the tip of his nose along her jawline, lips finding purchase on the column of her throat. “Could be fun.”

“Are you trying to convince me or seduce me?”

He huffs a laugh. “Both. Is it working?”

“The seducing part, definitely,” she sighs as he laves his tongue over her skin and unbuttons her (his) shirt, brushing the backs of his fingers along her lower belly. “The convincing part… well, ask me after we’re finished.”

Samuel snickers and flips them so that Carla’s on her back, determined to win her over. It takes him the better part of an hour and he’s pretty sure that she was probably going to agree anyway, but the way she weakly smacks his sternum, chest heaving, and gasps, “okay, you’ve convinced me,” is completely worth the strain in his exertion by the end of it. 

They decide to do it on Friday, because they have a quiz the day before that they should really focus on studying for and his mom is working a double-shift. It gives him a few days to think about what he can show Carla how to make, at least. Macaroni seems obvious, but then she genuinely would tease him about not knowing how to cook anything else, so he shelves that possibility for another time. He could teach her how to make an omelet, but it might be a bit difficult—and, truthfully, it isn’t his strong suit, either.

Then the thought of breakfast makes him remember how Carla once told him that her favorite food is pancakes, and _those_ are definitely something he can do.

He picks up what he needs from the store last minute so that she doesn’t figure out what he has in mind during one of her post-coital ventures in his fridge, and by the time the weekend finally comes around, he’s unusually excited. It’s been a while since he’s cooked with another person; while his mom and Nano are complete disasters in the kitchen, Samuel remembers the times they would cook together as a family growing up. They’d been rare, what with his mom having to work so often and then Nano going away, but they’re still fond memories. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the comfort of preparing a meal with someone else until now.

Instead of getting morose about it, however, he just finds himself glad to share the feeling with Carla, if he can. While quality time with his family had been rare growing up, he has a hunch hers had been nonexistent altogether.

Carla had opted to go home to change out of her uniform after school, and Samuel’s already prepping in the kitchen when his doorbell rings. He wipes his hands on a dish towel and absently slings it over his shoulder as he goes to open the door for her.

Her eyes roam over him appreciatively when he does, lingering on his forearms, exposed by the pushed-up sleeves of his shirt. “I can’t believe I’ve never seen you cook before. Do you always look like this when you do?”

“Like what?” Samuel asks, stepping aside to let her in.

“Hot,” she says simply. And probably deliberately too, because she smirks at the slight flush it brings to his cheeks. “You should take off your shirt and throw on one of those _kiss the cook_ aprons instead.”

Samuel chuckles. “Hate to disappoint, but I don’t own one. Or any aprons, actually.”

“Hm, too bad.” Inhaling deeply, she peers into the kitchen through the window. “So, chef, what’s on the menu today?”

“You’re gonna tease me throughout this entire thing, aren’t you?”

“Considering how fun it is…” She trails off with a small grin, and he shakes his head in mild exasperation. “Please. You like it.”

Samuel turns around and walks back into the kitchen so that she can’t see how he blushes again, but she knows anyway, because she huffs a laugh through her nose as she toes off her shoes and follows him. 

She comes to a stop next to him at the counter, raising an eyebrow at the ingredients he has gathered. “Are we baking a cake?”

“Close.” She rolls her eyes, so with a sigh of his own, he allows, “Pancakes. They’re your favorite, right?”

“They are,” she says, tone neutral. Samuel tries his best to study her expression out of the corner of his eye and notices how she’s pressing her lips together, looking vaguely pleased. He chooses not to poke fun at her about it, even though she clearly wouldn’t—and hasn’t—shown him the same decency. Besides, if he does, she might just try to hide herself from him like she does from everyone else; this girl who likes to tease him about his pasta intake and lets him see her with tomato sauce smeared on the corner of her mouth and who actually enjoyed _Star Wars_ that time he made her watch it with him, thank you very much. 

Carla’s always surprising him though, which is exactly what she does now as she admits in a somewhat vulnerable-sounding voice, “I’ve always wanted to learn how to make them.”

He smiles. “Well, you will today.”

“You’re awfully confident in your teaching ability.” 

“Less so in your ability as a student. We can barely get through studying without you jumping my bones.”

“Remind me, which one of us got a better grade on yesterday’s quiz?” Samuel grumbles a non-answer under his breath and Carla lightly swats at him, which he attempts to dodge with a laugh. “Yeah. You don’t mind at all when I ‘jump your bones’, but fine, I promise to keep my hands to myself.”

He snorts. “Alright. Ready?”

At her nod, they wash their hands, then he directs her to preheat the oven to two-hundred. She manages easily enough after he points out what dial to use; regardless, she gives him a weird look as she does it.

“I know I’m not the expert here, but last time I checked, pancakes weren’t made in the oven.”

“It’s for keeping the cooked ones warm while we finish off the rest of the batter,” he explains, ignoring how she says _expert_ as he places a small bowl in front of her. “Unless you’re weird and like them cold and soggy?”

Carla, in the middle of putting her hair up, sneers in response.

“So, now we just have to measure out all the ingredients and dump them into the bowl,” he says after giving her a wide smile. “Pre-made mix from a box is way more convenient, but this is healthier. Or, well, it has less preservatives.”

“How suddenly health conscientious of you,” she jokes.

“I have my moments. Anyway, I figured we were going for authenticity.” He digs out a few measuring cups from the drawer and hands one to her. “We’ll start with flour. The recipe calls for a cup, though you have to scrape off the excess. You can use your finger.”

She takes a scoop from the container plainly labeled _flour_ pushed up against the wall, using the line of her index finger to gently level it out. “Like this?”

“Yeah, good. Now just—”

Before he can finish, she tips it over into the bowl without the care of someone who knows exactly how messy flour can be, sending a tiny cloud puffing up before them. Luckily, she’s wearing a light-colored top, so if any of it gets on her, it’s hard to see.

However, considering the fact that he’s wearing black, Samuel isn’t as fortunate. Carla blinks in surprise, then looks at the dusting of white on the front of his shirt and giggles into the palm of her hand.

“Sorry,” she says, genuine, before her lips curl in a sly smirk. “Now you really do have to take it off, no?”

He scoffs in amusement, attempting to clean himself up, but mostly just succeeding in making it worse. “Nice try, but it’s just flour.”

“Oh, I’ll get my way eventually,” she hums. “What’s next?”

“The rest of the dry ingredients,” he says, pulling what they need over. “Salt and sugar are less messy, but be careful with the baking powder.”

The latter two go into the bowl without a hitch, although they run into another minor disaster when Samuel accidentally tells her they need half a _table_ spoon of salt and not half a _tea_ spoon, resulting in him having to scoop out what he can after she pours it in with the rest. Thankfully, they haven’t mixed it yet, so he thinks he does a pretty good job. 

“This is going as well as I expected, honestly,” Carla tuts beside him, but she doesn’t seem mad. If anything, she just looks entertained. 

“I’m glad I’m living up to your expectations,” he chuckles, pushing his hair back where it’s begun to fall over his forehead and realizing a second too late that he forgot to wipe his hands again. He doesn’t need a mirror to check that his hair is now streaked with white too, because the way Carla purses her lips in a poor attempt to suppress her smile is telling enough. “Don’t.”

She raises her eyebrows. “I didn’t even say anything!”

“But you were going to.” 

“Fine, but you didn’t know _what_ I was going to say.”

“Was it anything nice?”

The corner of her mouth tips up. “Since when am I nice?”

“You have _your_ moments,” he says. 

She half-turns, playing with the chain hanging from his neck. “Good to know. But you like me better when I’m mean.”

With that, Carla lifts herself onto her toes, though not by much due to their closeness in height, and parts her lips as she moves in to kiss him. Samuel places his hands on her waist, but doesn’t immediately push her away. “We’re getting off track.”

She makes a small, noncommittal noise, and cups his jaw. He allows a second more of indulgence, tongues flitting together, then pulls back when she angles her head to deepen the kiss; her resulting pout is admittedly adorable, but one of them has to have some self-control here, and it clearly isn’t going to be her. Surprising, given that Carla and control are two things he closely associates with one another, but.

He moves on from that particular thought, smiling only a tad ruefully. “Pancakes?”

She heaves a long-suffering sigh, but gestures for him to continue. He picks up a new mixing bowl, setting the other one to the side for the moment.

“Now, wet ingredients. Have you ever cracked an egg before?” 

She wrinkles her nose a bit. “No.”

“It’s not that gross, I promise,” he says, holding in his laugh this time around. “It’s easy. I’ll help you.”

Samuel takes an egg from the carton and gives it to her, then shifts so that his chest is pressed to her back and he’s looking over her shoulder. He notices her curious smile out of his peripheral; she’s clearly wondering what he’s up to, but allows him to bracket her arms and readjust her hold on the egg so that it’s nestled between her thumb and index finger without any complaint.

“So, you _can_ do it with one hand,” he starts, “but that’s for the pretentious.”

His lips tickling the shell of her ear is an accident, although the shiver it draws out of her is only fair retribution for all of the teasing she’s put him through so far, in his opinion. 

“You’re an artist. Isn’t ‘pretentious’ your default setting?”

“I think the word you’re going for is ‘tortured’.”

“Ah, you certainly have that down, then,” she huffs. Her voice turns knowing as she says, “You only know how to crack it with two, don’t you?”

“That’s besides the point,” he replies, feeling her shoulders shake with silent laughter as he frames her hands with his own. “Okay, you have to do it hard enough that it’ll break, but not so hard that you get bits of shell in whatever you’re making. Just like this.”

He starts to guide her movements, knocking the egg against the mixing bowl’s metal rim. Then he presses her thumb into the crack it forms and pulls the halves apart. 

“Not so bad, right?” He asks as the egg lands with a plop.

She tilts her head in acquiescence. “Still a little gross, though.”

“It’s worse when it’s in your hair or stuck to your clothes,” he tells her, tossing the shell in the trash. At her raised eyebrow, he shrugs. “Public school. A lot of things get egged.”

“You don’t even like to cheat on homework. I doubt you were going around throwing eggs at people.”

“True. But when you have a brother like mine, you end up as collateral damage to these sorts of things,” he says. “And if you cheat, you don’t _learn_ anything.”

“Goody two-shoes.”

“Isn’t that what _you_ like about me?”

“Who says I like you?” She teases, bumping him with her elbow. He pushes her lightly, and she laughs as she stumbles half a step. 

Samuel has her melt the butter in the microwave, something she handles easily on her own since she’s become well-acquainted with it over the past couple of months. When she comes back over, he asks, “You stir while I pour or you pour while I stir?”

“You can stir.”

He has a sneaking suspicion she just wants to watch his arms, but he doesn’t point that out, instead handing her the milk.

“One cup of this, then the butter. Pour slowly and steadily, otherwise we’ll end up with another mess and you won’t be so lucky this time around, if that happens. Actually—” He looks at her for a moment, sighs in resignation, then tugs his shirt over his head and holds it out to her. “Here.”

Her gaze roams over his newly exposed chest, but she still quirks an eyebrow. “You just want to see me wearing your clothes again.”

“And I thought you wanted me half-naked?”

She snorts, not arguing that fact as she unbuttons her expensive-looking blouse and drapes it over the back of one of the dining chairs. To be honest, as she stands there in just her bra and mini-skirt, he suddenly finds himself of the same notion, but doesn’t stop her as she takes his shirt from him and pulls it on. It covers most of her skirt and she has to push the sleeves up again, but she looks good, as usual.

Turns out Samuel was right to trust his gut, because a little of the milk splashes out at them when she starts pouring initially, even though Carla follows his directions to do it carefully. Most of it misses her due to how she jumps back, but a few droplets still manage to seep into the fabric. 

“Well, I needed to do laundry anyways,” Samuel says, dabbing his own forearms and stomach with a paper towel. 

“I’m pretty sure this is an omen about how I shouldn’t be in the kitchen,” she replies. “How very feminist of fate.”

He chuckles. “Nah, you’re doing way better than my mom, seriously. That thing I said about eggshells in your food? My entire childhood consisted of crunchy scrambled eggs.”

“No wonder you taught yourself to cook,” Carla says. She watches him make quick work of whisking the liquid mixture together, then (extra, _extra_ cautiously) begins to shake in the dry ingredients when he gestures for her to. 

“She’s always worked weird hours, so, you know. It was either learn or starve, because we couldn’t exactly afford takeout every night.” He shrugs. “I like it, though. It’s calming, in it’s own way—usually.”

She shares his smirk. “It is kind of fun,” she admits. “And you’re not _that_ bad of a teacher.”

“See? I told you, you can be nice.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, fondly rolling her eyes and setting the empty bowl aside as Samuel finishes the batter. “Are those lumps supposed to be there?”

“They’re normal. It’s important not to over-mix; I heard that somewhere once, I think.” He pulls out a pan from the cabinet and sets it on the burner, turning the stove to medium. While that heats up, he walks to the fridge and fetches the containers of fruit he’d purchased from the supermarket the day before, admitting, “I knew you loved pancakes, but not what you like on them, so I kinda just… got everything, to be sure.”

“Everything?”

“Even chocolate syrup,” he says. Honestly, he spent more than he probably should have on condiments alone, but the soft smile Carla gives him now is worth it.

“I usually just use regular syrup, but chocolate’s good too.” She nods at the containers. “And so is fruit.”

“Look, they’re not even tomatoes,” he says jokingly, grabbing a cutting board and placing a few of the strawberries on it. “Cutting’s pretty easy too, you just obviously have to watch out for your fingers, but you can stay on pancake duty, if you want.”

She shakes her head. “Show me.”

Just like with cracking the egg, Samuel wraps his arms around her and guides her in cutting the leaves off of the strawberries, then quartering them. He’s aware he could probably just _show_ her, but realistically, he knows that she prefers it this way just as much as he does.

He leaves her to it once he’s confident that she can handle it herself, returning to the stove and using an ice cream scooper to ladle the batter into the pan. The first pancake comes out a little on the dark side when he flips it, so he lowers the heat down appropriately and glances at Carla out of the corner of his eye; she’s not paying him any mind, though, sucking a bit of strawberry juice from her thumb as she uses her other hand to scoop them into a bowl. Unlike earlier that week, she’s clearly doing it absently, not deliberately, and while Samuel still fixates on it anyway, he mostly just likes seeing her at ease. Standing here in his kitchen, wearing his shirt, hair tucked behind her ear, _guard_ _down_ … it makes something within him ache, in both a good and bad way.

But for a moment, he finds himself never wanting this to end.

“What?”

Samuel blinks at her soft question. Some small, irrational part thinks he may have said that out loud, but then he realizes that she’s just wondering why he’s staring at her, so he shakes his head with a smile. “Nothing. Everything okay?”

“Yes,” she says. “But you burnt that one.”

“It’s not _burnt_ ,” he argues, checking the underside, and, well. “Shit.”

Carla laughs, wiping her hands clean and coming over to him. “Here. Let me.”

“A professional, all of a sudden,” he teases. She gently hip-checks him out of the way and he gives her the spatula, grinning. “When there’s a lot of bubbles on top, that’s when it’s ready to flip.”

She spoons some batter in and, after a couple of minutes, slips the spatula beneath the pancake and flips it over. She just barely manages to keep it in the pan, but it’s also admittedly a nice, normal golden-brown color, and she beams up at him half-smug, half-sweet. “You were saying?”

He rolls his eyes. “The first one never comes out perfect.”

“Sure, keep telling yourself that.” Samuel turns the sink on, runs his hand under the faucet, and flicks the water from his fingers at her. “Hey!”

He goes wide-eyed as she glares weakly at him, nodding his head at the pan. “Careful, you might burn it.”

Carla laughs. “Ass.”

As she works through the batter, Samuel sets the table, placing down plates and forks and then putting all of the toppings in the middle for easy access. He checks on Carla periodically, but she seems to have everything under control; the minuscule bumps they ran into and what she said about an omen aside, she’s surprisingly a natural. He helps her drop some blueberries into a few of the pancakes just for variety, and it isn’t long until the bowl is scraped clean.

“These actually look really good,” she comments while Samuel uses a mitt to pull the plate of cooked pancakes out of the oven. She transfers the final one to the top of the stack, then turns the oven off. 

“Only one way to be sure. C’mon.” She follows him to the dining table, tucking her ankle beneath her thigh once she takes a seat. Her barely-contained excitement is endearing, and he smiles to himself while she puts a pancake on her plate, drops some fruit on top, then drizzles it with chocolate and a spiraling mound of whipped cream. He goes the standard butter-and-maple-syrup route for himself for now, but waits to dig in, instead watching her reaction as she takes her first bite. She lets out a pleased-sounding noise, and his lips spread in a smile. “How is it, not too salty? I’m sure your cook has probably made better, but—”

He pauses as Carla swallows and places her hand atop his. “Samuel, they’re really good,” she says, not unkindly. “Which you would know if you started eating yours already.”

Chuckling, he picks up his fork. “Okay, fair.”

He cuts off a piece and brings it to his mouth, and sure enough, they _are_ pretty good. He does get a pocket of flour—so maybe not _all_ lumps are okay—but they’re fluffy and tender. Not bad for a recipe he pulled out of a cookbook his mom bought long ago and that he’s positive she’s never actually opened since.

“Pancakes remind me of when I was a kid,” Carla speaks after they’ve made tiny dents into the food. “I still have them now, obviously, but we used to eat them all the time. Too much, probably.”

He wonders who _we_ is, then, based on the vaguely sad look on her face after she scoffs a laugh, knows exactly who she’s talking about. 

“Me too. They also remind me of when I was growing up, I mean,” he says, and that expression disappears just as quickly as it came, which is what he’d been aiming for. “On the weekends, we would cook breakfast together. It used to go just as smoothly as today did, but it was nice.” 

“So having flour in your hair is normal for you?” He laughs, Carla joining with him when he accidentally drips syrup on his stomach. “Flour, milk, syrup… soon you’ll have the whole pantry.”

“Oh, yeah?” Nodding, she smiles around her fork as she puts another piece of pancake in her mouth, and Samuel points at a random spot on her face. “Well, you have something right there.”

“Whe—?” 

She abruptly cuts off with a jerk when he swipes his finger through the whipped cream on her plate and lobs it at her, hitting her square in the chin. 

“Oops,” Samuel says as she gapes back at him. Then the cream slides off, and he immediately bursts out into laughter.

He stutters, though, when a piece of chocolate-drenched pancake smacks plainly against his forehead.

“ _Oops_ ,” Carla remarks snidely.

He lets out a quiet growl, chucking a strawberry at her that she manages to dodge with a sound caught between a squeal and a laugh. They stand up at the same time, and he traps her against his chest with one arm, attempting to smear the rest of the whipped cream across her jaw but mostly just managing to get it into her hair.

“Samuel!” She chastises on a gasp, shoving him back, and next thing he knows, he’s got a handful of blueberries crushed into his bare chest.

Things escalate pretty quickly from there, which, in hindsight, isn’t all that surprising considering that’s more or less their forte. She darts away from him, swiping up the can of whipped cream, and he chases with the bottle of chocolate syrup, ribbons of brown and white flying through the air. 

They run around the kitchen laughing giddily, acting like children, making an absolute _mess_ , culminating in Samuel catching Carla around the waist when she slips in something spilled on the floor. He ducks out of the way of the stream of whipped cream raining down on him, taking the can from her hand and tossing it to the side with a clutter.

“Had enough?”

She grins deviously, pressing her thigh between his legs. “Have _you_?”

When his lips part on a quiet moan, she leans in and bites one of them, licking into his mouth. Samuel gets a hand under her jaw and angles her head to the side, sucking a bit of chocolate from the column of her throat.

“My mom’s going to fucking kill me,” he says as Carla tears his shirt over her head, throwing it away carelessly. She pushes him down into one of the chairs, takes off her bra, and suddenly he doesn’t care.

“I’ll help you clean up after we shower,” she replies, straddling his lap.

The kitchen is spotless by the time his mom comes home the next morning, and on Monday, there’s a gift bag in his locker.

He laughs when he pulls a _kiss the cook_ apron out of it, catching Carla’s smirk from across the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are always nice, they make me wanna write more! and i’m still accepting prompts :)


	6. stardust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst of the nightmares always include him in some way, even if the beginnings are swathed in smiles and warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for: **vici1997**
> 
> rating: teen
> 
> prompt: carla having a nightmare and samuel taking care of her
> 
> additional tags: angst, nightmares, and then some more added fluff. forewarning, this is set in the same universe as my [soulmate fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24166213) a few weeks after they make up in samuel’s apartment, so you might be a little confused if you haven’t read that yet. but also maybe not because again, this is mostly plotless lol

It’s not that Carla just assumed the nightmares would magically, miraculously, _mercifully_ stop the moment everything was done and over with. It’s just that, for a while, they’re put on hold, and she’s too busy being re-wrapped up in Samuel to notice.

Either way, it’s naïve. She’s not prepared for when the clock on the metaphorical time bomb hits zero.

The worst of them always include him in some way, even if how this one begins is far from what she’d ever constitute as terrible. It’s not even a dream, really—more reminiscent to a memory, so vivid that she swears she can actually feel the cool, early autumn breeze on her skin, making her hair tickle the edges of her face and turning the tip of her nose a shade of pink that goes unseen by Samuel beneath the dim moonlight. 

Besides, he’s way too distracted to notice anyway, hand outstretched towards the sky as he points out the stars, lips spread in a wide smile while he talks about each different constellation they make.

She remembers how they wound up here on the roof of his apartment building that evening; remembers lying with him on his mattress; remembers listening to him try to convince her how that collection of dots in his ceiling— _right there, that one, you see it?_ —looked _just_ like Scooby-Doo; remembers scoffing, saying that those dots look all the same, just like all the stars do whenever someone pretentious goes on about the Big Dipper or some other, because to Carla, all she saw was _dots_ , nothing more.

But for someone poor, Samuel does have a tendency to be pretentious. Not in a snobby way, not like the people she’s been surrounded with her whole life, but in a nerdy way. So it hardly surprised Carla at all when he’d argued with her, good-naturedly but passionately. It _did_ surprise her when he’d suddenly launched himself up with little more than a grin, so abruptly that she’d blinked and blanched a little, tossed her her flats and then hauled her up from the bed before she’d even gotten a chance to ask what the hell he was doing while she was slipping her feet into her shoes, trusting him regardless.

Now here they are, lying side-by-side like they’d been just minutes before, except now they’re on his rooftop with nothing but an old blanket he’d gotten from the linen closet on their way out to separate their backs from the loose gravel and bird shit. Samuel’s arms are lined with goosebumps because he’d shrugged off his hoodie for Carla to wrap around her shoulders the minute they sat down, and she is supposed to be listening to him prove a point about constellations, but even in the dark she can see how his face is lit up like a little kid, so unlike the somber boy she’s used to seeing outside of the confines of his apartment.

If that wasn’t evident enough, she feels his excitement in the mark on her wrist, his heartbeat going wild in her skin. 

That, Carla swears, feels so vivid, too.

“How do you know so much about all of this, anyway?” She asks, genuinely curious, and watches him glance at her out of the corner of his eye, lips quirking.

“Promise not to laugh?”

“No.” He bumps their shoulders together in light reprimand, but shares her grin. “Fine, I promise. Tell me.”

“Okay,” he starts. “Bill Nye.”

“ _Bill Nye?_ ”

“You know, the science guy.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know who he is, Samuel.”

“Yeah, well, in second year, we watched him talk about outer space. And I may have gotten a bit obsessed for a while.”

“With Bill Nye or with space?” She teases, rolling over a bit so that she can rest her chin on his chest, eyes glinting. “Oh, did you wear a little lab coat and bow tie? How cute.”

Samuel shakes his head and avoids her gaze, but he’s still smiling. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”

“I lied,” she responds, making _him_ laugh. “So…?”

“No, I did not wear a Bill Nye costume, because I was not obsessed with some old dude,” he says. “I just thought the stars were really, really cool. Plus, I was an art kid. You can’t judge me for fixating on the fact that the sky had _pictures_ this whole time.”

Carla chuckles, shifting onto her back again but staying close, resting her temple against Samuel’s shoulder. She stares at the stars, at the invisible pictures she can’t make out.

“Which one’s your favorite?”

“There.” Samuel points at a big, bright star surrounded by a bunch of smaller ones. “Perseus.”

“Like the myth?”

“You know about Greek mythology?”

She hopes he can see the sardonic look she gives him. “I’ve gone to private school my whole life. Yes, I know about Greek mythology.”

She also likes to read, something that he knows because of how she’d admitted it to him in the quiet comfort of his bedroom a couple of weeks ago.

“Fair,” he concedes. “There’s a few constellations named after other Greek legends around it, like Andromeda, right there. But I used to think Perseus was cool. Son of a god, slaying monsters, you know.”

“Medusa isn’t a monster, she’s a victim. Poseidon raped her, Athena was a bitch about it, and then she became collateral in a fight that didn’t concern her in the first place.”

“All true. And I eventually realized that Perseus is a weirdo with an unnatural attachment to his mom.” They laugh quietly together for a moment. “But it’s still the first constellation I learned. Sentimental value.”

She thinks about a younger version of Samuel lying up here by himself, literally lost in the stars. He was probably a cute kid. Small, quiet as ever, but cute. Not-yet grown into his abnormally huge head. 

That thought makes her giggle.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says, pressing her lips together to stifle the sound, turning her own head away from him to hide her smile when that doesn’t work.

He chases her, though, fluidly rolling over so that he’s above her, hands braced on the space of blanket near her shoulders on either side. She laughs some more, pushing at his chest weakly; his pulse has picked up in her mark again, that fluttery, quick-type beat she notices whenever they get playful. 

“Are you still making fun of me?”

Carla slips her arms around his neck, playing with the hair at his nape. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Why should I believe you? You’re an admitted liar,” he replies, but he’s grinning and already ducking down to kiss her.

Her eyes fall closed automatically, lips curled in a smirk, lips waiting for the touch of his own. The breeze still tickles her face, but she’s not cold. She can feel the hard surface of the rooftop beneath her, slightly cushioned through the blanket. She can hear the sounds of the city, lively but muted. She can smell the detergent and Samuel’s cologne and that distinct scent of _nighttime_ , stronger than what she’s used to because of how much higher they are above everything else, creating a cocktail that’s not only intoxicating, but so _vivid._ She remembers it perfectly.

She remembers opening her eyes when he’d taken just a tad too long to kiss her, and instead of finding a teasing expression like she expected, she’d seen the stars reflecting back at her, bracketed by lashes too long to be real. She remembers how he was giving her that _look_ , the one that made her breath come quietly. She remembers how his heartbeat wasn’t fluttery anymore, but steady and calm. 

Most of all, she remembers thinking: _oh_. 

But when Carla opens her eyes now, there’s no starry sky, no blanket, and no Samuel.

Right. The worst of the nightmares always include him in some way, even if the beginnings are swathed in smiles and warmth. 

She’s still lying down, only she’s not on the rooftop anymore. Her palms are face-down on either side of her hips and she feels dirt and loose pebbles digging into her skin, and there’s something bright in the corner of her vision, even though the sky is black and empty. She turns her head, wincing as the light gets harsher straight-on. Headlights. 

Suddenly, she can hear the car’s engine, loud despite the fact that it’s idling. 

Suddenly, the dirt and pebbles don’t feel dry and rough beneath her hands, but wet and tacky. 

Suddenly, she knows it’s blood, and she knows exactly whose it is.

There’s no sight of him, though; in this forest, there’s just Carla, this car, and the trees. The smell of nighttime is polluted by the metallic scent of blood, and she rises on shaky legs, turns and stares down at the puddle she’d been lying in. The dirt is saturated with it, her entire back is sticky with it. Too much blood. Far too much to mean anything good.

And then, peeking out from the darkness where the car’s headlights can’t reach, she sees it. A hand. A hand so familiar to her she’d recognize it anywhere, even though, right now, it’s bloodied and bruised, a finger bent unnaturally. And then, Carla _runs_.

Rocks dig into her bare knees when she falls to them at Samuel’s side, her own hands shaking as they roam over his body, roll him onto his back so that he’s in the light and she can see him. His hair is sticking to his forehead with his blood and it’s getting on her dress, his head resting in her lap. She cups his face in her hands, she begs him to wake up, she leans over him and cries and apologizes and cries. She desperately wishes that she’ll feel his heartbeat in her mark, she swears she’ll tell him if she does, she swears she’ll do _anything_ if she does.

But nothing happens. Samuel doesn’t move. He just lies there, face tipped toward a sky not even spattered with stars, and there’s nothing but Carla, the car, the trees, and the dead body of the boy she loves in her arms. 

The car roars to life, gunning straight for her. She closes her eyes just before the impact.

Again, nothing comes. 

“ _He’s controlling you_ ,” says her father, the real puppeteer, and Carla can feel the stairs’ railing digging painfully into the meat of her hand. 

“ _Don’t make the same mistake I did,_ ” says her mother, the bystander, and Carla can feel the sharp lance of pain her words bring through her chest.

“ _You never had me_ ,” says Carla, the liar, and she can feel herself choking on them, choking on tears, choking on Samuel’s blood, choking on a silent scream that just won’t leave her lungs.

She opens her eyes, back on the rooftop, Samuel leaning over her. But she doesn’t see the constellations in his eyes anymore, just her own dirt-, blood-, and tear-streaked face staring back at her. It morphs into that of a little girl whose world isn’t shattered yet, whose wrist is birthmarked and whose best friend grins and laughs and breathes life. It morphs into that of a teenager whose world is slowly killing her, whose wrist thrums with the pulse of another and whose best friend is the next dose of drugs she can get her hands on. It morphs through both and back again, over and over, and Carla can’t look anymore. 

Medusa never wanted to hurt anyone. Most men deserved what they got from her, true. But maybe, Carla wonders, Perseus had actually seen her misery, all her pain and suffering bestowed on her by gods and _fate_ , and had done her a favor by putting her out of it.

Samuel is not doing himself any favors by loving Carla.

By loving her, he is going to end up gnarled and bloody and dead.

*

Carla’s eyes fly open. She’s met with nothing but a dark expanse above her, her palms are slick and wet, and there’s a bright spot in her peripheral.

Then reality fully checks in, and she realizes the moisture is just her sweat, the light is just the full moon poking through the curtains hanging over the window, and the expanse is actually Samuel’s silhouette hovering over her. The moonlight cuts across his eyes. She doesn’t see stars or her own reflection swimming in them, but _worry_.

She can’t hear him over the sound of her blood rushing in her ears, his lips moving inaudibly, and Carla glances around wildly. Samuel’s room. His bed. His sheets tangled around her legs. His drafting table pushed against the wall. His shoes kicked off near the door. His hands on her shoulders. 

Most importantly, his heartbeat thrumming in her mark. 

She’s not in the forest where he disappeared. Not on the rooftop, either. She’s in the apartment proper with him, just like she has been for the past two weeks, and he’s okay, he’s alive.

He’s _here,_ and Carla does what she wanted to do every other time she woke up gasping from a nightmare and he wasn’t: she wraps her arms around his neck and squeezes him tight, letting the sound and feel of his pulse chase away images of his lifeless body from her mind. She clings to him. And then she releases a sob into his shoulder, strangled and unbidden. 

“It’s alright,” Samuel murmurs, smoothing his hands down her sweaty hair. “Carla, it’s alright.”

He holds her until she’s stopped shaking and his t-shirt is damp. She doesn’t know how much time has passed when he carefully moves back, just that she’s too exhausted to keep him from doing it. Distantly, she registers the backs of his fingers sweeping along the side of her face.

“Do you think you’ll be able to go back to sleep?”

It’s been a while since she’s had a nightmare, but she’s familiar with the aftermath of one. Sleep won’t come to her at all for the rest of the night, at least. And if, by chance, it does, then she won’t let it. She won’t risk slipping back into that dream, so she shakes her head.

Then she shivers, her sweat cooling on her skin and sending a chill through her. Samuel tucks damp strands of hair behind her ears and slips his hand into hers. 

“Come on,” he murmurs softly.

Again, Carla doesn’t protest the movement, just hollowly allows him to pull her up from the mattress. Next thing she knows, they’re standing in his bathroom and she’s staring at his back as he leans over and flicks the shower on. Thankfully, he’s leaned her against the sink, facing away from the mirror; she doesn’t want to know what she’d find staring back at her were she to look.

He returns to her, cupping her face in his hands and searching for her permission. When she nods, he kisses her on the forehead and then strips her of her sleepwear, does the same with his own, and guides her beneath the lukewarm spray.

Carla tucks her face into Samuel’s neck and wraps her arms around his back, getting lost in the familiar, solid feel of him while his fingers gently massage the tension from her scalp and shoulders. Eventually, she smells her shampoo as he begins to work it into her hair, then her body soap, which he spreads over her with tender hands. 

They don’t say anything to one another, but by the time they’re lying back in bed in new pajamas and under fresh bedding, Carla’s feeling a lot better. Drained and a little empty, sure, but not so much that she still feels like she isn’t entirely in her body anymore. 

She tightens her arm where it’s draped over Samuel’s middle. “Thank you,” she says quietly, words mostly uttered into his side. “I’m sorry for waking you up.”

He squeezes her back, and she feels him shake his head. “Don’t apologize. Bad dream?”

Carla tries to focus on how he’s tracing abstract patterns on a sliver of skin of her lower back, but if she stares too long at the darkened room, her mind starts to conjure up unwelcome images, and if she closes her eyes, she’s afraid of what she’ll see when she opens them again.

“Something like that.” She’s grateful he doesn’t ask any further about it, at least for the moment. “Can you just... talk?”

“Of course. About what?”

“I don’t know. Anything,” she says. Then she thinks of how the dream had started, how calm it had made her feel. “Do you remember that time we went up to your roof and looked at the constellations?”

“I remember _me_ looking at the constellations and you being blind to every single one of them, but yeah,” he replies lightly, probably trying to draw a smile out of her. He succeeds, however small it is. “Want to hear about them again?”

She nods. “Please.”

“Well, let’s see,” he hums thoughtfully. “There’s Pegasus. Easy to find because of the big square four of its stars form; it sort of looks like if a five year-old drew a horse and forgot to add its hind legs. 

“Ursa Major is home to the Big Dipper. It’s supposed to be a bear, but honestly, that one looks more like a horse than Pegasus does. Virgo, too, now that I think about it.” He chuckles. “Maybe Ptolemy had a thing for horses when he was discovering all of these.”

“To be fair, the ancient Greeks had a thing for everything,” she says, voice still low, but now with a slight edge of amusement to it.

“We should be thanking them for their passion. It gave us modern medicine and showers,” he jokes, before angling his head. “But also algebra and theatre, so maybe not.”

Carla huffs a quiet laugh through her nose, inclined to agree. She listens to him go on about more constellations; about Aquila, the eagle, and how its brightest star is around as twice as big as the sun; about the herdsman Boötes and how it trails the Big Dipper, though he mostly just laughs at the name like a teenage boy; about Lyra, the harp, and how it doesn’t look even remotely like a harp at all.

He tells her about all of the ones in the northern sky, then about a few southern ones he knows, too. Canis Major and Minor. Phoenix. Ophiuchus. Dorado. Corvus. His knowledge on them is way less extensive, but he tells her what he knows about whatever myths are associated with them, some she’s familiar with, some not. He talks about wanting to see them for himself someday. 

“You could,” she says. “You’ve never left Spain before, right?”

He shakes his head. “Hardly even left Madrid.”

“We should go.” And before he can argue, before he can talk about money and how he has to repeat his final year and she’s still going to California for university, she continues, “We have all summer. Australia is lovely, and you could see all the stars you wanted there. The southern lights, even. We should go.”

“It does sound nice,” he says, like he’s really thinking about it. “A change of scenery might help.”

She senses it coming in his tone of voice, if the way he splays his fingers between her shoulder blades like he’s bracing her isn’t enough, and stiffens a little. Waiting.

“Do you have nightmares a lot?”

Carla doesn’t immediately respond, but Samuel is patient with her. She can’t lie to him. Not anymore, and especially not here.

“It’s been a while,” she eventually begins, and he knows that much, because she’s spent every night in this bed with him since she was supposed to leave the city. “But, yes.”

“When did they start?”

“After Marina,” she admits quietly. His hand doesn’t pause for even a second where it’s now stroking her hair, like he already knew the answer.

It’s silent for another moment. Carla knows the subject isn’t going to be dropped just like that, but for now, she studiously focuses on his heartbeat, on his breathing, on his touch. Her face is half-hidden in his torso and she’s probably clutching him too tightly, but Samuel doesn’t say anything about it.

However, seemingly out of nowhere, he does ask, “Do you want some hot chocolate?”

The question catches her off-guard; it reminds her of when she’d leaned in to kiss him and he’d suddenly asked her if she wanted macaroni. She blinks and raises her eyebrows, just like she did back then. “Sorry?”

“Hot chocolate,” he repeats. “Whenever I had a bad dream as a kid, my mom would make me some. Or Nano would, if she was working.”

She remembers having the occasional nightmare as a little girl—obviously nothing like she has now, but standard things that almost all children dream about, such as monsters hiding beneath her bed. She remembers waking up with tears streaking down her face, small hands clenched in her blanket. She also remembers never creeping into her parents’ room for comfort when it happened, not even once. 

The Rosóns weren’t that type of family. Like so many other things, she’d learned that early on. 

But Samuel’s is, no matter how broken it may be right now. And she knows what he’s doing. He’s giving her more time.

She’s grateful for it.

So she says, “okay,” and that’s how she finds herself sitting at his kitchen table a couple of minutes later. The time on the microwave reads three-twenty-seven in the morning. She feels a stab of guilt again at disturbing his night, but his smile is soft as he brings her a chipped, steaming mug of instant chocolate, and like he knows what’s going on in her head, he places another kiss on her hairline.

Carla closes her eyes. His lips are warm and so is the ceramic cup in her hands, and she feels her shoulders relax as she leans into him. 

They end up on the couch, backs against either arm, legs framing each other in the middle. Her foot is in his lap and he’s idly brushing his thumb over her ankle bone, patient still, waiting for her to talk.

She knows she has to. If they’re going to make this work, if she’s going to continue sharing his bed, she can’t not talk about the nightmares. Especially because she knows tonight’s not just some one-off; it’ll happen again, sooner or later.

She still can’t bring herself to look Samuel in the eye when she finally speaks, however; instead staring at an old water stain on the coffee table, barely visible in the lamp’s dim light. 

“They weren’t so bad at first,” she begins, slowly. Her mug is half-empty, its contents now cold, but she holds it close to her chest like an anchor. “The nightmares were… rarer, but I also just wasn’t sleeping. That got worse after Christian. I never told you this, but the night you took me back here for the first time was also the first time I’d gotten peaceful sleep in months—on this couch.”

The corner of her lips turn up fondly as she picks at a fraying thread in the seam, recalling the memory of Samuel’s chest pressed to her back, his arms around her. She’d fallen asleep _so_ fast. Back then, she attributed it to just being worn out by their activities, but she knows it had just been him. Even when they were playing their game, even when she was desperately trying to fight destiny and her mark and everything she’d been taught to fight her whole life, he always made her feel safe. 

It’s that reminder that has her meeting his eyes again, stomach fluttering not only because of the vulnerability, but also because of what she’s about to say next.

“The night you faked your disappearance is when they really started to happen.” He doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t drop his gaze, but she sees the guilt in his dark eyes. Carla forces herself to keep looking at him. Her voice comes out so small. “I—I dreamt you dying. Tonight, I dreamt I found your body.

“Those are the most frequent ones. In the dream, I see you on that path trying your best to get away from the car chasing you, but you’re never fast enough. Or I’m there and I find you already dead. The details vary, though the end is almost always the same. And it doesn’t make sense—I’ve been to Guzmán’s grandparents’ house before, but never on that exact path. I couldn’t bring myself to go when everyone was searching for you. I was—” 

_Scared. Frightened. Terrified._ She stops herself before she can voice any of them; he already knows, and she’s not trying to make him feel guilty. She also wants to be _honest_ , however, and she realizes that the two of them unfortunately go hand-in-hand.

“Even when I found out the truth, they didn’t stop. I guess because it could’ve actually happened. My father could’ve killed you,” she continues. “I started to dream about other things. My parents. Marina. Polo and Christian, sometimes. But the ones with you are always the hardest. I used to wake up frantic and desperate to know that you were okay, even though I knew you were. I would squeeze my wrist until I felt the slightest trace of your heartbeat. I just… I just wanted you there with me.”

She doesn’t realize she’s looked down again until Samuel suddenly shifts and gently takes her mug from her, and when she moves her head up he’s setting it down on the table. He slides towards her on the cushions, stopping when her thighs are draped over his own and their faces are mere inches apart. He has one foot on the floor now. Her leg is curled around his back. Samuel cups her cheeks in his hands and his eyes are a little wet, but his voice is strong. Way stronger than hers has been the entire time she’s been talking.

“I’m here now,” he tells her. “You don’t have to go through them by yourself ever again. Even when you’re in California. I don’t care what time it is here, I don’t care what I’m doing: if you have a nightmare, you call me, okay?”

His thumbs sweep over her cheeks, and Carla realizes she’s crying, too. “Okay.”

“Pinky promise me.”

It’s so random that she can’t help but let out a small laugh, sniffling. “What?”

“You heard me.” He removes one of his hands and holds his pinky out to her. “Pinky promise.”

Carla thinks he’s being a dork, but he’s also making her chest feel warm, so she hooks their fingers together anyway. “I promise to call you if I have a nightmare,” she recites. At his pointed look, she adds, “No matter what time it is for you or what you’re doing.”

“Good,” he smiles, leaning forward to capture her lips in a gentle, lingering kiss. After, he pulls back a hairs’ width and whispers, “I love you.”

She hears what he also wants to say in there, as well. _I’m sorry_.

“I love you, too.” _I know_.

Because it’s not okay, what he did to her—but nothing they ever did to each other was. She knows he’s sorry. She knows the guilt eats him alive. She knows that he wouldn’t do it again, and that’s enough. She forgave him long before now.

“I can’t remember when the last time I did a pinky promise was,” Carla says a short while later, another quiet chuckle escaping her.

“Well, just a few minutes ago.”

She pushes weakly against his face, his grin curling behind her fingers, but she’s smiling, too. He’s an idiot. She loves him. “Shut up.”

Samuel wraps his hand around her wrist before she can pull away, turning his head to press his lips against her mark. Just like every other time he’s done it these past couple of weeks, it makes her heart skip. She’s still growing used to him knowing about its existence.

He leans over and opens the drawer on the coffee table, fetching a pen amongst the disorganized junk stored inside. His movement is so casual, it’s almost like he’s doing it as an afterthought; he takes the cap off with his mouth, turns her arm over in his lap, and Carla doesn’t even blink. _This_ she’s used to—being Samuel’s living, breathing canvas.

She rests her temple on the couch’s cushion and watches idly as he begins to draw around her mark. A wing on the side of the _S_ , its twin on the _U_. The curve of a few roses, the point of a few sunflowers. And constellations, lots and lots of constellations; small, like blue freckles on her skin.

“My dream tonight wasn’t all bad, though,” she finds herself saying after a moment.

He briefly takes his eyes off his work to glance up at her, curious. “Really?”

“It started out on your roof, the night you took me up to stargaze. That’s why I had you talk about them when I woke up. That was a good night.”

“It was,” he agrees, a soft smile gracing his lips.

She mirrors it. “That was when I realized I’d fallen for you,” she admits. “It’d already happened, I think. But that was when I really knew.”

Stars in his eyes, wind in his hair, the slightest of shivers in his skin. He’d looked so beautiful to her, so beautiful that it made her ache; stole her breath away. She had never felt that way with anyone before. 

It’s much easier to focus on that part of the dream now. She feels lighter with it, now that she’s finally unburdened herself of the nightmares by talking about them. Again, she knows they won’t cease instantaneously, but like Samuel said, she doesn’t have to go through them alone anymore. She trusts that he won’t let her isolate herself ever again. 

In this moment, he looks beautiful, too. Bathed in the soft glow of the lamp light, hair tousled from sleep, in nothing but briefs and a t-shirt. It’s Carla who’s shivering faintly, though, as he blows a gentle stream of air across her wrist, thoughtfully tracing his thumb along the dried ink of one of the constellations.

“Do you think in another world, one where soulmarks don’t exist; one where I still end up at Las Encinas somehow or maybe we’ve gone to school with each other since kindergarten; one where we’re just two normal teenagers living normal lives, whatever… do you think we’d still end up together?”

Carla gazes at him, wondering what suddenly brought this on, though not apprehensively. Like he can read her mind, Samuel ducks his head a bit and elaborates. 

“As a kid, I would lie on that roof, stare at the stars, and wonder what else was out there. Like, if they weren’t just _stars_ , but little doors to other worlds.” He huffs a bit like he thinks he sounds ridiculous, but Carla doesn’t laugh with him, too busy watching his lash line, swept downwards towards where he’s still brushing his thumb over her skin. “But these past few months I started doing it again. Except it was different, because back then I was just a bored kid letting my imagination go crazy, but now I knew what it felt like to have you and then lose you.”

She feels her chest tighten. Samuel has started tracing his index finger over each individual letter of her mark, and she doesn’t interject, just patiently waits for him to go on like he’d done with her earlier.

“I’d stare at the sky and think about whether or not there was an alternate universe me who had you, and honestly, the thought really wasn’t all that comforting. On one hand, that Samuel was with you and he was the luckiest son of a bitch ever. On the other, _I’d_ be out of my mind with jealousy. Seriously, I’d get myself worked up over it, as if it’s even a real possibility.” Carla does chuckle now, a soft sound through her nose. He grins and finally looks back up at her, but doesn’t stop his sweeping touches. “What do you think?”

She sucks in a slow, deep breath, running it over in her mind. “Honestly?” He nods. “I don’t know.”

His face doesn’t fall; his eyes don’t even shift either, actually, but Carla draws her hand up and brushes his hair away from his forehead, then cups his jaw in reassurance, anyway.

“But I do know that if there’s a version of me out there who isn’t with you, mark or not, she isn’t happy like she’s probably convinced herself she is. Not really,” she continues. “And besides, have you considered that maybe _you’re_ the luckiest son of a bitch? You ended up with me, in the end. There could be a Samuel in another universe who didn’t, staring up at the constellations and asking himself the same thing.”

He snorts. “You think so?”

“Oh, definitely,” Carla replies with a smirk. “Being broody and dramatic is so ingrained in your personality, it _has_ to span across different worlds.”

Samuel sucks his teeth in exasperation, eyes going skyward, and Carla giggles, tugging on the hem of his shirt before he can lean too far away from her. He comes back easily though, circling his arms around her waist while she drapes hers over his shoulders. “I guess that means you’re a brat in every world too, then.”

“No, this is reserved just for you. Like I said, you’re the lucky one.”

“Yeah,” he sighs softly, resting their foreheads together. “I am.”

*

At five in the morning, Carla’s lying between Samuel’s legs, feeling the steady rise and fall of his stomach against her spine and staring at the old sitcom playing on the television. It’s one they’re both familiar with, and it’s weird—besides the loneliness, their lives couldn’t have been any different growing up, but one outdated, cheesy show that ran for too many seasons and isn’t even all that funny is something their respective childhoods share. 

She doesn’t think he’s actually been watching it any more than she has, though, the two of them equally lost in thought. They’ve spent the past hour and a half talking about the type of romantic, philosophical, or nonsensical things that are only ever appropriate for the wee hours of the morning, and now they’re winding down from it all.

However, Carla knows she still won’t be able to sleep, even if she can feel the telltale pressure behind her eyes. She shifts her head on Samuel’s chest and looks up at him. The TV’s harsh light flickers across his face, casting deep, dark shadows, and his own eyes are half-lidded, blinking slowly. He looks _exhausted_. 

“What are you doing?” Samuel protests as Carla leans over for the remote and shuts off the TV.

“Bringing you back to bed. C’mon,” she replies, tugging on his arms. He doesn’t budge, though. “You don’t have to stay up with me anymore, Samuel. I’ll be fine.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t mind.”

“Well, _I_ mind keeping you up this late. Let’s go.”

Again she tries to pull him up, and again he remains firmly planted on the couch. His eyelids may be lax and droopy, but the corner of his lips is curled up in an amused smirk at her trying and failing to get him on his feet. 

She drops back down beside him, sighing. “ _Samuel_.”

“I don’t wanna go to bed. I’m not even tired.”

He’d be entirely more convincing if his words didn’t come out as one conjoined, slurred mumble. 

“Oh, you’re not?” Carla asks flatly.

“Nope,” Samuel says. That small smirk turns into a wide grin, his cheeks dimpling with it, as he leans closer to her. “In fact, you know what?”

Her eyes transfix themselves on his soft, full lips. She can’t help it. Coupled with the way his voice is deeper from both exhaustion _and_ a new seductive note, she can’t help the thrill that goes down her back, either. “What?”

“I don’t feel like sleeping at all. I feel like...” He glances down at her own mouth before flicking his eyes back to hers, and Carla holds a bated breath. “... _Dancing_.”

Before she can even get out _what?_ again, Samuel is already up and off the couch, leaving her to blink after him in a mixture of amusement and confusion as he stalks straight past his bedroom and disappears down the hall. She doesn’t follow him, getting the sense that she’s supposed to wait, and distantly hears the muffled sound of him rustling around somewhere deeper in the apartment. A few minutes later he comes back with his arms full of something short and box-shaped; it’s only when he steps back into the radius of the lamp’s glow that she realizes what it really is.

“A record player?”

“Nano had a brief stint as a DJ,” he explains, setting it down on a side table. “But this plays vinyl. He used to collect albums.”

Samuel shuffles through a short stack of them he must have been carrying beneath the antique-looking thing, plucking one out and setting it under the needle. It makes a weird sound, and then the slow tune of a song from way before their time begins to fill the room. 

She can’t help the laugh that bubbles from her throat as he walks back over to her, extending his hand for her to take. “Are you being serious?”

“Of course. When do I ever joke? I’m too _broody_ and _dramatic_ for that.”

“You’re a dick,” she chuckles, slipping her hand into his and letting him draw her up. He does it with way more ease than she’d been managing with him a minute ago, which he clearly still finds funny. “I never said they were bad qualities.”

“So, in California, you’re going to describe me to people as your broody, dramatic boyfriend. What will they think?” He asks jokingly as he guides her to the middle of the living room, holding her close to his chest once they begin swaying to the music. His hands are warm where they’re resting low on her waist, and her sternum is warm with the reminder that, yes, Samuel is her _boyfriend_.

Like they’re in grade school or something. It’s ridiculous. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get sick of it, actually.

Carla loosely winds her arms around his neck. “No, I’d tell them that you’re introspective.”

“I like the sound of that better.”

“With the hands of an artist and the stubbornness of a mule,” she adds.

“How about the tenacity of a bull, instead?”

“Bull metaphors. I’m not going to show up to university as some Spanish cliché,” she replies, nose wrinkled in distaste, though it smoothes out a second later as she laughs with him. 

Then she tucks her head beneath his chin and stares out at the rest of the apartment, thinking of all the memories they’ve shared here, and grows serious.

“I would tell them about your disgusting macaroni and how I love it anyway; how you can be dominant, sometimes, but mostly thoughtful and sensitive. How understanding you are, even when you have every right to be the complete opposite. How you never gave up on me.” Her voice goes quiet. “I’d tell them that I still struggle with accepting the fact that I deserve you.”

He kisses her hair. “You do, though, you know.”

“I know.” She sighs. “This is all just new, still. The past year has been so much, and to think it’s all over now… sometimes I feel like this, right here, is the actual dream I’m going to wake up from. Is that stupid?”

“No. I feel the same way, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck, Carla,” he breathes. “Every damn morning I do, when I open my eyes and see you lying next to me.”

She smiles. On top of everything else, she’d tell those people that her boyfriend is a hopeless romantic—whose cheesy lines never fail to work on her, regardless.

They pick up speed a little, slipping hand-in-hand and following the tempo of the song. There isn’t much space, but as Samuel leads her around the living room, they manage not to bump into any furniture like she expects them to. He even twirls her away from him in a surprisingly fluid movement, and when she comes back into the cradle of his arms, she feels slightly breathless with it all despite the lack of any real exertion. He isn’t half-bad at this. It’s a pleasant surprise.

Then again, what hasn’t been surprising about him since the moment he entered her life?

“Who taught you how to dance?” 

“YouTube,” he answers, drawing an abrupt laugh out of her. “What’d you think I was gonna say, my mom?”

She’s still snickering. “I don’t know, but it definitely wasn’t _YouTube_.”

“It was for my first school dance a couple years back. I asked this girl I’d had a crush on for forever, she said yes, and then I started freaking out over every little thing that could possibly go wrong, including me not knowing what to do on the dance floor.” He huffs, shaking his head. “Omar didn’t help by saying that nobody really _dances_ nowadays so much as just grinds on each other. So, naturally, I had to cover all my bases.”

“Tell me you didn’t actually search up videos of people grinding in the club.”

Samuel’s shoulders shake with silent laughter. “I did. I don’t think I’ve ever been so red in my life.”

“I honestly have trouble picturing you as some sort of blushing virgin.”

“I used to be extremely shy, you know. You brought out a whole different side of me.” She grins a little. It’s not news to her, but she still feels smug about it. “And hey, those videos were very informative.”

She purses her lips. “I’m sure.”

“ _Not_ the grinding ones, the only thing those taught me was that the guy just more or less stands there while you girls do all the work,” he insists. “I meant the other videos I found. I learned a lot. Even some salsa steps, but…”

“But…?”

He ducks his head in embarrassment, their cheeks brushing. “I accidentally learned the girl’s part,” he admits, joining Carla when she chuckles again. “Anyway, it ended up being all for nothing. Twenty minutes after we got there, I found my date making out with her ex-boyfriend in the bathroom. 

“She’s a dumbass.”

“That’s what Omar said. Pissed me off at the time, too. I was heartbroken, but for some reason I still felt the need to defend her,” he scoffs.

Carla cranes her head back, combing his hair away from his eyes fondly. “Sounds like you,” she says. “So all your new moves went to waste, then?”

“Yeah, I ended up just going home, luckily for everyone else.” At her raised eyebrow, he smirks. “These hips would’ve been too much for them to handle.”

Her resulting incredulous laugh is probably a bit too loud considering the hour, and Carla presses her nose into Samuel’s shirt to stifle it. He makes a mock-affronted noise.

“What, you don’t believe me?”

“Can’t say I do, no,” she replies, grinning.

“Fine. I guess I’ll just have to show you, then,” he says matter-of-factly, and next thing she knows he’s switching the record to something more modern and upbeat, pointedly shimmying his hips and looking like the world’s biggest dork. He’s obviously goofy and delirious from exhaustion, and it’s making her chest feel all thick and warm, like she’s got every single one of those constellations crammed in her ribcage. 

That feeling is exactly what makes her relent when he extends his arms out for her, expression expectant even as he bops to the music. She laughs, rolls her eyes, and lets Samuel pull her close again, except this time they don’t quietly sway about the room but end up losing themselves in the song, jumping to the beat and singing the words. Samuel swoops her up in a bridal carry, spinning her around, and she doesn’t muffle her laugh this time, the sound of it bouncing off the walls. 

Her stomach muscles are aching with it by the time Samuel tries to slow down and ends up tripping on the rug, sending them stumbling to the floor in a heap of limbs and hysterical giggles. A second later one of the neighbors below them disgruntledly pounds against their ceiling, and Carla clamps a hand over her mouth as Samuel whisper-shouts at the floor. “Sorry!” 

Carla somehow musters the strength to sit up, leaning her back against the coffee table and swiping at the tears under her eyes, still giggling periodically. “How many complaints do you think have been filed against you in the past year alone?”

“So many that I’m surprised I haven’t been kicked out yet,” he replies, sprawling out on the floor. “But, you know, I make rent, and that’s all my landlord cares about, really.”

She lets out one final laugh, cheeks pleasantly sore, and lets the wave of contented silence wash over them. She basks in it. So does Samuel, his smile wide as he exhales long and deep toward the ceiling.

And then he rolls over. He rolls over until his head is in Carla’s lap, and suddenly that feeling in her chest isn’t bright and starry, but thick and dark like the trees towering over them.

Like the blood pooling into the fabric of her dress.

She’s instantly thrown back into her dream, a shiver going down her spine as if she can feel the night air on her skin. There’s nothing but her, the cars, the trees; the dead body of the boy she loves in her arms.

“Carla?”

Samuel’s quiet voice pulls her out of her reverie, and she opens eyes that she hadn’t even noticed had fallen shut to find him staring up at her. Upside down, worry clouding his gaze, but still here. Still in his apartment.

She exhales a shaky sigh, sliding her hands over his cheeks like she’d done in the dream. Only Samuel doesn’t remain lifeless, but wraps his fingers around her wrist and holds her there, brushing his thumb over her mark, over the drawings he’d left, and shifts his head to kiss the inside of her palm. He then moves her hand down his chest and splays her fingers over his heart; he doesn’t say anything and neither does she, but he’s looking at her like _that_ and they don’t have to. She knows what he’s doing and he knows what she needs.

At Samuel’s silent encouragement, Carla continues exploring him on her own, reassuring and grounding herself in the smooth planes of his body. Not once does he try to rush her or push her for more, not even when she rucks his shirt up and skims her touch across the fresh, unmarked skin revealed to her. He just follows her lead. 

When she curls her fingers around his biceps, he spreads his arms out on the rug, and Carla traces the underside of muscles there, leading into the warm dip of his inner elbows. When she flits her fingers over his collarbones, he shivers beneath her, and Carla eases away the goosebumps, slipping into the soft strands of his hair. And when she tucks her fingers under his shoulder blades, he sits up between her legs, and Carla slides her hand over his back, dipping into each notch of his spine. 

She isn’t sure how long she takes, but it must be a while, because by the time she’s finished the record has stopped playing. She wraps Samuel in her embrace and rests her forehead on the nape of his neck. Breathes out, long and deep. 

She doesn’t say thank you and he doesn’t ask if she’s alright. It isn’t necessary, but Carla places a kiss in the middle of his shoulder blades and hopes it conveys the love and gratitude she has for him, anyway.

*

Just before dawn, they wind up on the roof. Samuel pulls a blanket over both of their shoulders and they sit down on the asphalt, tucked into one another, into a cocoon of comfort. Still, there’s not much she can do to protect her face from the cold, so she presses her nose into his side and snuggles further against him. 

Vivid. Everything is vivid. The feel of his soft, warm body, molded beside hers. The sounds of the city, one half winding down, the other waking up. The smell of detergent and shampoo and dewy morning air, crisp in her lungs. 

It’s enough to chase away the last remaining dregs of her nightmare, the final tendrils that just wouldn’t let go. She closes her eyes. Relishes in it all.

“You’re falling asleep,” Samuel whispers a short time later, arm gently tightening around her.

“I’m not,” she replies through a small yawn.

“Right,” he huffs disbelievingly. “You’re gonna miss it. Look.”

The sky shifts from muted blues and purples to peachy pinks and yellows as the sun begins its descent over the horizon, poking through the high-rise buildings like a tongue would between teeth, and Carla looks. She looks so much that she finds herself unable to look _away_ , a bright, golden spot in her vision. Not the headlights or the moon, but the marking of a new day.

“Want to head back inside?” Samuel asks after a while.

She glances up at him. He has his hood drawn over his head and his hair is curling out from beneath the brim. His nose is pink, jaw dark with five o’clock shadow. The sun’s rays are highlighting the lighter flecks of brown in his irises. They look like the stars no longer visible above. 

It’s a nice reminder, knowing that they’ll always be there even when she can’t see them.

“No,” she murmurs, resting her head back on his chest. “Let’s stay a little longer.”

Samuel brushes his lips over her temple and smiles.


	7. feel more / with less

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sooner they’re done eating, the sooner she can go home and text Lu that she’s never letting her set her up with somebody ever again.
> 
> At least the waiter’s nice to look at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not technically a prompt fill but i did get requests for some smut, so!!! i’d also like to say that no matter how long it takes me to update, i haven’t forgotten or abandoned this fic! i’ve just been busy, then had brief writer’s block on top of being a slow writer in general. but i hope 17k+ words makes up for the wait :)
> 
> rating: explicit
> 
> additional tags: classist assholes (carla’s on a bad date), and explicit sexual content

“...and then a year before that, a few of my buddies and I spent Christmas on a yacht off the coast of Santorini. _Huge_ party, you know how it is. Have you been before? You should come with me sometime, you’d love it.”

Not for the first time tonight, Carla has to suppress rolling her eyes at the pompous, cliché bullshit coming out of her date’s mouth. Also not for the first time tonight, she wonders if she should be insulted by what Lu thinks her taste in men is, given that it was her who set Carla up on this blind date to begin with.

He’s apparently one of Valerio’s friends from boarding school, which Carla sort of finds hard to believe, if only because she’s pretty sure the only thing that Valerio and this guy have in common is a penchant for cocaine. Which, now that she thinks about it, is sometimes all that matters to someone who likes to get high, but whatever. Valerio, in spite of his family and wealth and preferred extracurricular activities, is surprisingly down to earth.

Her date is decidedly not, something Carla became clued into the moment they sat down in this restaurant an hour ago.

His name is Salvador; an old, pretentious name given to a son from old, pretentious money. Money that he has spent this entire time flaunting, whether it be by throwing it at the most expensive bottle of wine (that honestly isn’t even that _good,_ in Carla’s credible opinion—it’s too dry, too oaky, although she’d kept this to herself after taking her first sip and instead smiled tight-lipped and graciously) on the menu, or boasting about it in every conversation they’ve had so far, like he is right now.

As if Carla hasn’t met hundreds of people like him. As if she doesn’t come from his exact world. As if she’s supposed to find this _impressive_ or something.

“I’ve been to Greece before,” she says neutrally, once again adopting _that_ smile. Salvador doesn’t notice it, or how her deliberate non-answer actually means, _there’s no way in hell that’s going to happen._

“But you haven’t been with me,” he insists, winking.

Her smile gets even more forced. She hadn’t planned on replying anyway, but the waiter’s perfectly timed return to top off their wine is a convenient enough excuse as to why she doesn’t say anything further on that particular subject.

Salvador drones on about something else, and Carla mostly tunes him out as she watches the dark red liquid slosh into her glass, because seriously, anything is more interesting than having to listen to the man sitting across from her talk about his past vacations or cars or elbow-brushes with a celebrity she hasn’t heard of and/or doesn’t care about. And she really does mean _anything_ , up to and including the waiter himself.

Because he’s cute, something she noted as soon as he stepped up to their table and informed them that he’d be their server for the evening. Unlike Salvador, who hasn’t even so much as acknowledged any of the staff’s existence since they checked in for their reservation at the hostess’ booth, Carla had actually bothered to read the silver-plated name tag pinned to the waiter’s shirt. _Samuel_ , it had read in plain block letters.

When Samuel leans back from pouring their wine, she offers him a small, thankful smile, if only because she doesn’t want to be roped in with Salvador’s ilk. She’s rich, yes. She can even be rude like him, too. But not _needlessly_ so, and this is also one of the many points where Carla differs from him: she’s extremely detail-oriented. She’s always been observant, even as a little girl; taught to sit there and smile politely for her parents’ business associates at parties and act like the perfect daughter from the perfect family they so desperately wanted to portray themselves as. And she’s good at that, still is—but it got horribly boring by the time she turned seven, and the only way to alleviate herself of that boredom had been by watching everyone around her. She’s had well over a decade’s practice observing others. By now, she’s an expert at it.

So, needless to say, it hasn’t escaped her notice in the slightest how Samuel shoots her a sympathetic look every time he comes back to their table and hears Salvador talking about whatever nightclub he has VIP access to or some other. Waiters are practiced observers, too. He’s clearly picked up on Carla’s disinterest where her date hasn’t. Although, to be fair, she’s mostly stopped being subtle about it and Salvador is stuck so far up his own ass that it’d be remarkable if he even noticed when their food arrived.

She thinks she spoke too soon—or maybe just jinxed it—when Samuel returns her smile, turns to leave, and Salvador’s hand actually reaches out to catch him by the wrist, stopping him.

Samuel glances down at where Salvador’s touching him, and then he clenches his jaw. Subtle movements, but Carla sees them both. 

Weirdly enough, they make a small thrill course through her. 

“Hey, kid,” Salvador says. _Kid,_ as if he isn’t around their age. She really does roll her eyes now that he isn’t looking at her anymore. “We ordered our entrées over half an hour ago.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Samuel’s voice sounds deceptively patient. He even smiles a little, though it’s not as genuine as the one he’d offered her just seconds before, but more reminiscent to the one she’s been giving Salvador all night. “I’ll go check on them right now.”

Salvador nods, letting him go without another word. He turns back to her and picks up his wine. “Anyway, what was I saying?”

 _I don’t know,_ she thinks. _I care even less._

He continues on without waiting for her response. At this point, she’s positive he’s just content with hearing the sound of his own voice.

Meanwhile, Carla contents herself with watching Samuel’s retreating back. And his ass, maybe, but only because she’s bored and it’s nice to look at. He weaves through the multitude of staff darting about the busy restaurant, then disappears behind the swinging doors leading into what she assumes has to be the kitchen.

Part of her selfishly wishes he’d done something drastic in response to Salvador grabbing him, something to make this night remotely noteworthy. That in itself is a testament to how bored she is—as a rule, she hates when a scene is being made.

The brief crack in Samuel’s patience had been more than a little intriguing, though. 

Salvador’s talking about golfing in Scotland when Samuel comes back out five minutes later, two plates in either of his hands. Carla visibly straightens, not because she’s particularly hungry (though, admittedly, she is), but because the sooner they’re done eating, the sooner she can go home and text Lu that she’s never letting her set her up with somebody ever again.

“I’m sorry for the wait,” Samuel says. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

Predictably, Salvador doesn’t answer; she didn’t know he could turn into any more of a stereotype, but he’s currently busy taking a picture of his food. For Instagram, probably. He’s even making sure that his Rolex is visible in-frame.

Carla sucks in a tiny, impatient breath, then looks up at Samuel. “No, I think we’re okay. Thank you.”

“Of course. Enjoy your meals.”

Once again, Carla can’t help but think that he’s cute. He has a pretty smile. Nice lips, nicer dimples. All of him is pretty, really. He has pretty eyes, a pretty nose, a pretty (and sharp, and square) jawline. Pretty hair, even. She’s always liked curls.

Salvador’s hair is slicked down so much that she can’t even tell whether his hair is curly or not, but it’s not necessarily a _bad_ look. His eyes are piercing. His nose is fine and his own jaw is defined, too. It’s not that Salvador isn’t objectively attractive, he’s just unbearable.

Case (well, one of the many) in point is when he cuts into the steak he’d ordered, _swears_ , and then snaps his fingers at Samuel where he’s already across the room, calling over the din when that clearly doesn’t manage to catch his attention. It turns some of the heads at the tables surrounding them, and Carla, very close to being pushed past her limit, scowls.

“What’s the issue?” She asks, trying to keep her voice low, but Salvador ignores her, never once taking his eyes off of Samuel as he walks back over to their table, eyebrows knitting together.

“Is there a problem, sir?”

“ _Yeah_ , there’s a _problem_.” Salvador gestures at his plate. “This shit is completely undercooked! I don’t understand how that happened considering it took so long for you to get it out to me in the first place.”

“I’m sor—”

“Hey,” Carla says sharply, cutting Samuel’s apology off as she stares at Salvador, eyes hard. “You don’t have to yell at him. He’s just doing his job.”

“Well, he can _do his job_ and get me the fucking chef. I want to speak to whoever it is.”

Samuel glances around somewhat helplessly, somewhat pointedly. It’s a Friday night, and they’re clearly busy. Carla doubts the chef has any spare time to deal with a rich idiot who’s mad that he isn’t getting his way.

“He can take it back to get cooked more, instead. Can’t you?” Carla directs that last part at Samuel, tone deliberate.

“Yes, of course. Apologies, sir, it’ll be just a moment,” Samuel replies, picking up the plate just as quickly as he’d picked up on the fact that she was giving him an out. He dashes off before Salvador can protest, which he obviously wants to.

He huffs heatedly, face set in hard lines. He’s no longer fixing Carla with that look she’s used to most guys giving her whenever they’re trying to seek her approval, impress her, or just outright get into her pants, but frowning now, too. “Why’d you defend him? It’s not like you know him or anything.”

“I don’t know him,” she confirms evenly with a nod. “And you don’t either. That doesn’t mean you can just act like an asshole and get away with it.”

Salvador opens his mouth to retort, but then yanks up his wine glass and downs the rest of its contents in favor of saying whatever he was about to say. In Carla’s opinion, it’s the most sensible thing he’s done tonight, if not his entire life.

Samuel returns a few minutes later with the well-done steak and the chef’s heartfelt apologies, which she suspects might just be bullshit made up by Samuel himself to appease Salvador. However, he’s too pissed at her to care, waving Samuel off disparagingly.

They eat their dinners in tension-filled silence. Well, _Salvador_ eats, chewing so hard that Carla thinks he’s going to pop a vein in his forehead, while she mostly just pushes her salad around her plate, appetite lost. To be honest, she thinks of it all as an improvement nevertheless. She can practically feel the rage radiating off of Salvador, sure, but at least he’s finally shut up.

Still, it’s not like she wants to sit here for another half an hour watching steam come out of his ears, so she shortly excuses herself to the restroom and isn’t shocked in the slightest to find him gone when she returns. It’s also unsurprising that he’d left without paying, but that’s not really an issue; in spite of all his bragging, Carla’s positive she has even more money than he does, and so she drops a two-hundred dollar tip on the tablecloth before going back to the hostess’ booth to settle the bill. It’s overgenerous, she knows, but it’s also an apology. Even if she gets nothing out of this evening, Samuel can, at the very least.

The sun has already set when she walks outside, but it’s still light out. It’s also the weekend, and Madrid is as busy as ever; the sidewalk is bustling with people and the street is packed with cars. She orders a taxi from her phone and resigns herself to the long wait, leaning against the restaurant’s exterior wall with a tired sigh.

She briefly debates calling Lu, though ultimately decides to deal with that later. Lu knows Salvador somewhat personally, and on top of that, she’s been pestering Carla about dating again for forever. Carla doesn’t feel up to arguing with her, at the moment.

She scrolls her socials for a while, likes Ander’s latest post on Instagram, reads up on news on Twitter. Eventually, though, she puts her phone on sleep and resorts to her tried and true method of passing the time: people-watching.

There’s nothing interesting to be found, really. Mostly just people like her— _wealthy_ , that is, women in designer cocktail dresses and men in tailored suits waiting for their own dinner reservations, the former probably spewing the same shallow bullshit as Salvador and the latter being way more invested in it than Carla had been. She’s just glad that she can freely roll her eyes all she wants now, turning her head away from the line forming out of the restaurant’s door to peer down the other side of the street.

Her view is mostly blocked by a guy walking out of the alley a few feet away from her, his head bowed a little as he looks down at his own phone’s screen. It takes her a moment to recognize him given how it’s a little darker out here than inside and he’s no longer wearing his uniform, but sure enough, it’s Samuel-the-waiter. Dressed plainly in a denim jacket, plaid shirt, and dark jeans now, but it’s definitely him.

That should be that. She should look back in the other direction again and let him be on his way, because she really doesn’t know him. And despite the fact that she thinks he’s cute, despite the fact that she _doesn’t_ think he deserves to be treated like shit by an asshole under the impression that his wealth makes him worth more than he actually is, she doesn’t particularly _care_ to know Samuel, at that. 

So she doesn’t know why she finds herself speaking, anyway.

“Hope I didn’t end up getting you fired.”

At the sound of her voice, Samuel glances around for a brief moment before his eyes land on her. His lips twitch, and he shakes his head ruefully.

“ _You_ didn’t get me fired, but your friend, on the other hand…”

She raises her eyebrows. She’d mostly just been joking. “Shit, did you really?”

Samuel’s face suddenly splits as he laughs. “No, I’m messing with you. My shift’s just over.”

“Very funny,” she says flatly, hearing him chuckle again. “And he wasn’t my friend.”

“Sorry,” he amends. “Boyfriend, then?”

Carla scoffs. “Definitely not. He was a blind date my best friend set me up with. This was the first one we went on. And the last.”

She isn’t sure why she’s telling him this much. She isn’t sure why she’s talking to him at all.

She _is_ sure that she’s sick of hearing him saying sorry, however, which he’s obviously about to do again. Carla preemptively stops him. “He was an asshole, so before you apologize, don’t.”

“I wasn’t,” Samuel says, making her look at him in surprise. He rubs the back of his neck. “I was gonna call him an asshole, too.”

A small, wry smile curls on her lips. “Yeah, well. My best friend clearly thinks highly of my taste in men.”

“What, you’re saying ‘dick’ isn’t your type?”

She chuckles, shaking her head. “Not exactly, no.”

“So what is, then?”

 _Boys with dark, slightly curly hair,_ she thinks. _And with cute smiles, evidently._

But she doesn’t say that. She just gazes at him, quietly searching his face, and Samuel glances away with another quiet laugh. What’s funny, she doesn’t know. Why it doesn’t bother her, why she _likes_ the sound, she doesn’t know either. She’s only just met the guy.

A moment passes, then Samuel digs into his pocket and extends whatever had been sitting in it out to her, clenched in his fist.

She arches an eyebrow before hesitantly holding out her hand beneath his. A pair of slightly crumpled notes lands in her palm.

“Thank you for sticking up for me in there,” he says as soon as she looks back up at him, “but I can’t take this.”

“It’s your tip.”

“It’s also, like, double the amount of your actual bill.”

“Math has never been my strong suit,” she lies, not even trying all that well to hide it.

Samuel smiles, but it’s uncomfortable looking now. “Listen, I know what you’re trying to do—”

“Oh, and what is that?”

“Make it up to me for having to wait on a rich douchebag,” he replies plainly. “But I deal with customers like him at least three times every shift, so really, I can’t accept this.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might be one of those rich douchebags, too?”

“You’re not a douchebag,” he huffs, seeming so sure of that fact.

“Maybe not,” she says. “But you were only half-wrong.”

A crease forms between his eyebrows. Carla’s tired of holding her hand out, so she reaches for Samuel’s wrist, ignores how his pulse feels beneath her fingertips, and places the money back in his own palm.

“Keep it,” she tells him. “You probably need it way more than I do, I promise.”

Samuel stares down at it long enough to give her the chance to take a step back. She crosses her arms over her chest when she does, watching the gears practically turning in his head.

“Why don’t we compromise,” he offers after a moment. At her questioning look, he says, “Let me buy you dinner, at least.”

“With my own money?” She asks, amused. He shrugs. “You do realize I literally just ate at your place of work, right?”

“Technically, you didn’t. Your salad was almost entirely untouched when I cleared the dishes.”

Carla narrows her eyes. _She_ stares long enough to give him the chance to retract his offer, to huff another laugh, to say it was a joke and then tell her goodbye and leave to never see her ever again.

He doesn’t take it, though, and Carla sighs in defeat. She looks at him for a second more, and then she walks past him.

When he doesn’t follow, she glances over her shoulder, expectant. “Well?”

He jolts into moving, falling into step with her. “I’m Samuel.”

“I know,” she replies without thinking. “Carla.”

“Nice to meet you, Carla,” he greets. It’s his turn to sound amused now. “You don’t even know where we’re going.”

“Nope,” she says, not slowing down.

In her peripheral, she sees him grin. That same wide, cute, dimple-y grin.

Maybe she’s getting something out of this evening, after all.

*

The American diner he takes her to is what Lu would call _quaint_ , which really just means _tacky_ , if not downright _repulsive_. Carla’s not nearly as tactless as her, but she’s also a realist: the word she settles on as she follows Samuel to a once white, now yellowed-with-age booth in the far corner of the place is _questionable_.

Carla’s skilled at hiding what she’s thinking from others, always has been. But Samuel, who she’s only known for a grand total of fifteen minutes (she’s decided that the hour where he was her waiter doesn’t necessarily count), takes one look at her from over the top of his plastic, faded menu and huffs a knowing laugh.

“Try not to judge a book by its cover,” he says lightly. “The food’s great, trust me.”

The thing is that she does, for some reason. “Do you come here a lot?”

“Sometimes. It’s the most affordable place within walking distance of _Monarch_ , and they don’t provide us lunch, so.”

“ _Monarch_?”

He gives her an odd look. “The restaurant we just came from?”

“Oh, right,” she says. “In my defense, there’s no actual sign.”

There’d only been a metallic butterfly hanging over the door, something she’d stared at for a fraction of a second before Salvador had placed his hand low on her back and guided her inside, like she would’ve been unable to find the entrance herself. 

“Yeah,” he scoffs, smiling a little. “The owner is a fan of minimalism.”

“Snobs typically are.” 

She knows it’s mean and probably somewhat hypocritical, but Samuel’s resulting laugh lights up his entire face, and it sort of warms her chest.

“Speaking of,” he starts, “what do you think your date’s doing right now?”

Carla rolls her eyes at the thought. “Booking himself a flight to the Caymans to nurse his ego, maybe.”

Samuel nods, taking a sip from the soda that the waitress set down in front of him a minute ago. “I couldn’t help but overhear some of the things he was talking about.”

She smirks at him from behind her own straw, teasing. “And? Were you swept off your feet?”

“Oh, for sure,” Samuel plays along, nodding gravely. “If you weren’t going to run away with him, I definitely was.”

Carla snorts. “So ‘dick’ is _your_ type, then.”

“Nah. Rich, non-douchebags, more like.”

He’s disarmingly charming. It’s all well and good that the waitress returns to take their orders at that exact moment, because that means Samuel doesn’t see the small smile Carla can’t hide, tugging on her lips.

Feeling more than a little out of her depth here, she lets Samuel order for the both of them. He thanks the waitress when he’s done—by name, even. _Imelda_. He must come here more frequently than he let on, because Imelda gives him a pointed look when she thinks Carla’s too busy inspecting the multitude of framed, mismatched pictures hanging on the wall to notice. Carla does, of course, although she pretends not to. She also pretends not to notice how Samuel turns pink, just a little bit, when Imelda silently communicates something to him before walking away.

An odd sensation settles in Carla’s chest. Not necessarily the same warmth as earlier, but something similar. 

She’s not used to familiarity at the restaurants she typically dines at. She’s used to waiters like Samuel, polite and unobtrusive in his black tie and matching slacks. She’s used to crystal glasses and polished silverware, not paper placemats and a plastic cup filled with broken crayons to accompany it. 

In that instant, as she watches Samuel reach for them, she switches her adjective of choice from _questionable_ to _homey_. She likes it here.

Carla rests her chin in the palm of her hand as Samuel idly doodles on the corner of his placemat with green crayon. From this angle, she can’t really see what he’s drawing, but he’s also still not looking at _her_ , so Carla lets her eyes wander over him freely for a second.

They eventually land on the blue ink scrawled across the shoulders of his denim jacket, just faded into the fabric enough that she hadn’t been able to see it outside, and then it clicks.

“Are you working at _Monarch_ to put yourself through art school?”

“Maybe if everyone tipped as well as you do, but no,” he chuckles, shaking his head. He leans back, and Carla’s eyes go to the drawing. It’s of a pretty, intricate butterfly, and briefly, she thinks it’s a shame that he isn’t studying art. “What about you? Are you still in school?”

“I graduated last year. Studied abroad.”

He smiles warmly. “That sounds nice.”

“It was lonely,” Carla says, her sudden honesty surprising her. 

Samuel looks at her—not with pity, not with any expectation for her to go on further, but just _looks_ at her. It’s kind of unsettling. It’s also kind of addicting. 

“I get that,” he says, sounding like he means it.

Carla has to tear her gaze from his. “I studied business. It wasn’t really my choice, but,” she stops, giving a shrug instead. 

“Well, you’re back now,” he points out. “Did it go away?”

“What?”

“The loneliness. Is it gone, now that you’re home again?”

She stares at the ice melting in her drink, thinking it over. After a moment, she answers truthfully, “No. Not one bit, actually.”

“You have your best friend, though.”

“Lu, yeah,” she nods. “We’ve known each other since we were kids. I grew up with all my friends, really, it’s just…”

“Just what?”

“You can have all the friends in the world and still be lonely, you know?” She glances down. “And I think the loneliness didn’t go away when I came back because it didn’t just magically manifest the moment I left. It was always there, it just took me a long time to notice it.”

Ironic, really, considering how _good_ Carla’s supposed to be at that sort of thing. She’s also supposed to be good at not talking about this stuff with anyone; not even Lu, and especially not her parents. She’s never been one to wear her heart on her sleeve, bare out her soul, least of all to a stranger.

Samuel doesn’t say anything for a while, and Carla laughs hollowly, shaking her head. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”

“No,” he replies quickly, reaching out to touch his fingertips to hers on the tabletop. It shocks her into meeting his eyes once more. “I get that, too.”

When Carla searches his face, there’s no sign that he’s being anything less than genuine. He just looks understanding—and, weirdly, somewhat relieved, although she isn’t sure why. “You do?”

He blows out a deep breath, slumping against the back of the hard booth seat and glancing around the empty diner. “I mean, I’ve never left the country, I’ve been here my whole life,” he says, looking at her again, “but I know what it feels like to be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone.”

Carla’s gaze falls down to the green butterfly. “Well, I hope that feeling leaves us both soon.”

“I think it might,” Samuel says, eyes crinkling with the smile gracing his lips.

Nonsensical is a word that has never been used to describe Carla. She tends to attract a sort of blue-tinged palette of adjectives: cold, calculating, quiet, beautiful. Beautiful in a way that the edge of a stainless steel blade catches in the light, though; or how moonlight glitters over the surface of a body of water. Not _beautiful_ in terms of open fields dotted with sun-soaked flowers or rosy cheeks or an angel’s wings.

The thought she has now— _I want to curl up and lie in the dip of his dimple forever_ —is, without a doubt, nonsensical.

It could scare her, if she let it. It almost feels like a lack of control.

To distract herself, she plasters a teasing smirk on her face and asks, “So, are you often in the habit of picking up girls on failed dates from your job?”

Samuel chuckles. “Is that what this is, me picking you up? I thought I was just paying you back.”

“Men usually have ulterior motives,” she says, eyes narrowed in playful analyzation. “Or girlfriends.”

Another laugh bubbles out of him. “Nope, no girlfriend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Wholeheartedly single,” he grins, drawing a cross over his sternum with his finger. 

Carla hums, deliberately neutral. “Is there a reason for that?”

“Do you want there to be?”

“Just want to know if I’m sitting across from an undercover stalker or something.”

He scoffs, more amused than offended, and then shrugs. “Believe it or not, it doesn’t come all that easily to me, dating. I’m usually too busy. Or painfully shy.”

“But I don’t make you shy?” She asks jokingly.

“You make me nervous.”

Even though she hasn’t seen any obvious nerves coming from him so far—in fact, the complete opposite—he says it in such a sincere way that she can’t help but think he’s telling the truth. She raises her eyebrows a fraction. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No,” he says. “Not really.”

They’ve been doing this a lot—just looking at each other. Her, digging into his expression for any red flags to send her on her way. Him, patient and open, as if he knows what she’s doing and it doesn’t bother him one bit. As if he’s _daring_ her to find something, almost.

Honestly, she just finds it _thrilling_ , nearly dangerously so, and it’s hard to imagine how just thirty minutes ago she’d been incurably and unbearably bored. Very little time has passed since it was Salvador sitting across from her instead of Samuel, and yet she feels like a whole new night has begun.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you never denied having ulterior motives,” she says after a short, thoughtful hum, and Samuel laughs again, boyish and bright and ringing out all around them.

Imelda comes back then, and they both thank her as she places their food on the table. As she walks away, Samuel glances expectantly between Carla and the frankly giant burger now in front of her, so with a tiny sigh, she very pointedly picks it up and takes a bite.

She blinks a bit in surprise as she chews slowly. It’s honestly one of the best things she’s tasted in her entire life, which is obviously saying something. “Okay, wow,” she starts, swallowing. “You weren’t kidding.”

A haughty grin spreads on Samuel’s lips as he picks up his own burger. “If I do end up being a crazy killer, at least you got to taste heaven before you died, right?”

“Hilarious. If the waiter thing doesn’t pan out, I think stand-up comedy might.” He snickers. “But seriously, this _is_ way better than that salad I had earlier.”

“I figured you’d prefer that over stuff like this,” he says, gesturing at their decidedly unhealthy meals. Carla arches a brow, and Samuel’s eyes widen a bit. “I didn’t mean it like that, just—you know, fancy, overpriced, portion-too-small types of food.”

“And that surprises you?” She asks, though not sharply, and he shrugs in response. “Why? You don’t know me at all.”

It’s undeniably the truth. _She_ doesn’t even know his last name.

And yet, it seems like such a blatant lie.

“Fair enough,” Samuel concedes. “Let’s change that, then.”

She snorts dryly. “Is this the part where you ask me what my favorite color is? Or the name of my first pet?”

However, he skips directly over all of the awkward small-talk, and what he asks her next makes the playful fire simmering in her belly flicker out.

“Have you ever been in love?”

Again, she blinks, and again, she stares at him. She half-expects him to break out into another smile like he’s just joking, but no. He just patiently waits for her answer. Her complicated, convoluted, confusing answer.

She and Polo got together because it was just expected of them. It was always, “you two would make such a cute couple,” until it was, “you two _are_ such a cute couple.” Carla can’t remember a time where it wasn’t being shoved down her throat, the concept of _them_ , whether it was by his mothers or her parents or their friends—sometimes their _friends’_ parents, even. 

But Polo was her first boyfriend, her longest boyfriend, her _only_ boyfriend. And despite how they ended, it isn’t like she spent five years not caring for him at all. Carla loved him at one point, that much is for certain, but she knows that love and _in_ love aren’t really the same thing. She just doesn’t know the difference between them. 

“I don’t know,” she settles on. And because she wants to change the subject, she continues quickly, “Right. It’s my turn.”

The corner of Samuel’s mouth tips up. “We’re going question-for-question?”

“I just had to listen to my blind date blather on about himself for almost an hour straight. I’d hate to subject you to it, too,” she jokes.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Samuel replies, his sincerity poorly masked beneath a light tone. “But fine, go ahead.”

Carla rubs her lips together. “How do you _really_ know about this place? Because you weren’t being completely honest with me before.”

He ducks his head a little, expression sheepish. “My first job was waiting tables here, actually.” He must be able to tell that she’s about to ask him how he ended up at a restaurant that couldn’t be any more different than this one, because he explains, “Imelda and her husband own this place. Things got rough and they couldn’t afford to pay me anymore, so they had to let me go. I understood why, though; it’s not like I harbor a grudge or anything. Even before I worked here, I’ve been coming since I was a kid.”

Oddly enough, it makes her feel sort of special, knowing that Samuel decided to take her to someplace obviously sentimental to him. She suddenly realizes that he’d been downplaying it because he was afraid of what she would think. 

_You make me nervous_.

“I wish I knew about it when I was growing up,” she admits—again, far too honestly. Then she smirks, gesturing at the wall of pictures encompassing them. “Hey, are you in here somewhere?”

Samuel chuckles. “Too many times to count, probably. But…” He looks around a moment before sliding out of his seat, and Carla watches him stalk to the other side of the diner, lean over an empty booth, and pluck a red-framed photo from the nail it’d been hanging from. He comes back, holding it out to her. “Here.”

Carla takes it into her hands, and immediately finds herself smiling. In the picture, Samuel can’t be older than six or seven. He looks exactly the same, if not just a little more baby-faced, and his lips are pursed as he plants a kiss on a woman’s cheek. She’s young; has his soft, brown eyes, and Carla deduces that she’s probably his mother. On her other side, a boy slightly older than Samuel mirrors his position, except his arms are also wrapped around the both of them in a tight hug.

“You have a brother?”

“Nano,” he says with a nod. It comes out fond, but also somewhat guarded; Carla wants to ask about that, though Samuel gently nudges her foot with his own before she can. “You’re three questions ahead of me now.”

She sets the frame down, rolling her eyes lightheartedly and gesturing for him to go on. 

“You said studying business wasn’t your choice. What would you have gotten a degree in if you’d been given one?”

Carla taps her finger on her chin, idly chewing the fry she’d popped in her mouth. “Again, I don’t know. I’m not really great at this, am I?” She lets out a small scoff. Then, “Honestly, I’ve never really thought about it.”

In school, she studied, she got decent grades, but it had never been all that important to her, not in the long run. Maybe it had something to do with her future being so predetermined. And even when that shattered, suddenly finding herself with a string of wineries under her name and care still decided her major for her, lest she wanted to run them into the ground.

“I’m good at business, though,” she adds, glancing down at her food and lifting a shoulder. “It’s hereditary.”

“Being good at something doesn’t mean you also enjoy it,” Samuel tells her. “You’ve never wanted to be _anything_?” She shakes her head. He grins. “Not even when you were a little girl?”

“I didn’t realize sandbox fantasies were on the table.” 

Once more, Samuel just shrugs, taking another bite of his burger. “Everything is. C’mon, tell me.”

He doesn’t come off as insistent, but genuinely… _interested_. Carla isn’t sure if that’s the reason why she’s spoken more freely in the past thirty minutes than she has her whole life or if it’s something else, but she doesn’t let herself think too much into it. 

Instead she thinks about her response, looking towards the ceiling and straightening in her seat; inhaling slowly through her nose and trying to hide the somewhat embarrassed smile twitching on her lips. “Okay, fine. I wanted to be a mermaid.”

His grin gets wider, appraising. “I can see it.”

Carla sucks her teeth, rolling her eyes, but she’s also snickering softly as she tosses a fry at his chest that he catches and eats. “Shut up.”

“I’m being serious!” He says, expression lit up. “If mermaids were real, I could totally picture you being one.”

“Oh, I see,” she says sagely. “Are you going to tell me that my eyes are the same deep color as the sea, now? Because last time I checked, the ocean is blue.”

“Nah. I was gonna say that you’d look good in a shell bra.”

It should be sleazy. Coming from anyone else, it _would_ be sleazy, and it definitely has been before, because it’s not like this is the first time Carla’s received a comment like this about her body. But Samuel’s smile is teasing and his eyes are sparkling with amusement, not intention, and they only crinkle further when Carla, for some reason, actually laughs. The sound is startled out of her, and she has to cover her mouth with her hand, as if that’ll do anything to stifle the noise. 

“You’re absolutely ridiculous,” she says, and he’s laughing right along with her. “Also, you wasted your two free questions.”

They continue going at it until Samuel knows that Carla’s favorite thing to eat is pancakes and that she has a birthmark which vaguely looks like a cat’s paw on her inner thigh; until she knows that he’s never learned how to drive but _does_ know how to beatbox, and that he can make a mean macaroni. His eyes disappear behind those thick eyelashes of his in an embarrassed smile when she tries and fails to get him to prove the former. With the latter, though, they turn meaningful; confident in a way that sends an excited tingle down her spine, especially coupled with how he tells her that she’d be amazed if she ever got the chance to try it, like a promise. She learns that she just might want him to keep it.

She also learns that time seems to completely fly by while talking to him; their plates have long since been cleared of food, just a few stray fries remaining, and it’s only when Imelda comes back to offer to refill their sodas that it dawns on both of them just how long they’ve been sitting here. Over an hour and a half, at least, and suddenly, the mood shifts. It’s not necessarily awkward, but as they share the same hesitant, rueful smile, it’s definitely filled with a different kind of tension than what’s been pulling between them all night.

 _Disappointment_ , Carla realizes. _Reluctance_.

But she knows that they can’t stay here forever, so Samuel just asks Imelda for the check instead. As promised, he pays with the money Carla had left for him earlier. That doesn’t stop her from leaving another generous tip for Imelda to find when she’s cleaning their table after they’re gone, regardless.

Outside, it’s gotten a little darker and colder, but the city’s no less busy. In fact, it’s probably even more so, but as she stands with Samuel on the sidewalk and prepares to say goodbye, she really can’t help but feel as if it’s just the two of them who exist, at the moment. 

More nonsensical thoughts. It’s probably for the best if she just leaves them here with this boy that she most likely won’t see ever again. Let them slip into the cracks of the pavement and sprout something for another lifetime.

Carla bites her lip, then sighs quietly, too quiet for him to hear over the sounds of traffic and chatter. With disappointment and reluctance cloying deep in the pit of her stomach, she opens her mouth to do it. 

Samuel speaks before she can, though.

“One last question.” She raises her eyebrows, signaling for him to continue. He hesitates, the corner of his lips tipping up ever so slightly—and she recognizes it now, his nervousness. Maybe because, for the first time ever, Carla feels it, too. “Have you ever played tourist in your own city before?”

He sounds hopeful. It’s a question within a question.

She smiles. 

“Never,” is her answer within an answer. 

*

As tourists typically do, they end up at Plaza Mayor.

It’s nothing special really, not if you’ve lived in the city your whole life like she has. It’s just a giant square loaded with history and packed with even more foreigners, which sort of draws most, if not all, of the appeal away from it; and standing here in stilettos and a dinner dress, amongst people with cameras and pointing fingers, Carla feels absurd. She takes one sweeping glance over the entire thing and asks herself, _what am I doing here?_

But then Samuel’s fingers curl around her own, tugging her in the direction of a street performer dancing flamenco before a small crowd, and she stops wondering immediately. When she glances at him out of the corner of her eye, his gaze is focused forward, but he has a shy smile gracing his lips. 

He doesn’t let go of her hand. She doesn’t pull away, either.

They wander between the different attractions—a mime here, a dancing goat that’s been a fixture in this square for as long as she can remember there—and talk about everything and nothing as they go. It’s less of a question-for-question thing now, but just easy, natural conversation, like they’ve known each other all their lives.

“Do you think you’d make more money than you do waiting tables if you took up busking?” Carla lists into his side a little, looking at him teasingly. “You could beatbox.”

Samuel rolls his eyes and shakes his head in disbelief, but she can see the telltale dimple in his cheek. “I should have never told you that.”

“No, no. In fact, I think you should tell me more,” she continues, smiling wide. She indicates to the guy they’ve been watching rap into a microphone for the past few minutes, using her chin if only because she’s still got one hand entangled with Samuel’s and the other resting on the arm she’s leaning against, and she doesn’t want to move either of them. “Who would win in a battle, you or him?”

“I don’t rap,” Samuel replies resolutely.

It’s her turn to be disbelieving. “Uh-huh.”

“I _don’t_ ,” he maintains, and Carla just waits, knowing he’s about to give in. “...That was more Nano’s thing, because I completely sucked at it.”

She giggles, triumphant. “Tell me the two of you performed for people.”

“We did, actually,” he concedes, a laugh of his own bubbling out of him. “Never like this, not out in the city, but you know, house parties were always fair game.”

“I’m sure,” she says. “And I’m sure women were jumping at the both of you for it.”

“You joke, but one time, this girl came up to me and asked me if my mouth was as talented at doing other things as it was at laying a beat.”

“You’re not being serious.”

Samuel nods, wide-eyed. “One-hundred percent. She was very aggressive about it, too—and _I_ was very virginal, so that just means she completely terrified me on top of everything. I spent the rest of the night hiding from her. Which, again, I probably should not be telling you about.” He covers his face with his free hand. “Embarrassing.”

That’s not the word she’d use. Endearing, maybe. Intriguing, definitely, because Carla can’t help but be curious about the answer herself.

Her face betrays none of this.

“Nano and Omar still won’t let me live it down to this day,” Samuel continues, none-the-wiser. 

“Omar?”

“My best friend. From what I’ve gathered so far, it sounds like he’d get along great with yours.”

“What makes you say that?”

“They like to meddle, for one. Am I wrong?” Carla shakes her head, letting out a noise that mostly says, _definitely not._ “And maybe they don’t pay a whole lot of attention to what _we_ really want sometimes, but their hearts are in the right place.”

It’s true, she supposes. Lu is headstrong, bulldozing, bitchy. They clash way too frequently to count. But in all the years she’s known her, Carla has never felt as if Lu didn’t want the best for her.

“Is that all you have?” Carla asks amusedly once he doesn’t say anything else.

Samuel tilts his head in consideration. “Well, Omar’s gay.”

“Yeah,” she snorts, decisive, “Lu would probably like him.”

“Excuse me, do you speak English?” 

The new voice interrupts their quiet laughter, and they both look up at the elderly man addressing them. A woman is standing behind him, a friendly smile on her face. They’re British, based on the man’s accent, but they also just have that look about them: pink-faced after spending the day in Madrid’s heat, not used to the sun back in their home country.

Carla turns to the man. “Um, yes, I do,” she answers in his native tongue.

“Oh, good! If it isn’t too much, would you mind taking a picture of my wife and I?” 

She exchanges a brief glance with Samuel. She isn’t sure if he understands English, but it’s also not all that difficult to put together what the man wants using context clues. Samuel just shrugs in response.

“Sure,” Carla says, and the man’s wife walks forward and hands her an actual disposable camera. She wasn’t even aware they still sold these things. The closest she’s gotten to using one is probably Guzmán’s Polaroid camera, but she figures it’s all the same. Point and shoot. “Right here?”

“In front of the statute of King Phillip, if you don’t mind,” the man says. It’s not far, just a handful of steps away, and Carla follows him and his wife over to it, Samuel trailing behind. “This is our first vacation in over thirty years. We’ve always wanted to come, haven’t we? The picture’s for our grandson, Mason. My ancestors are from here, we’re descended from this very king! Mason doesn’t believe me.”

Carla doesn’t either, but the man’s sweet, if not also an oversharer in the way that only old people are. She smiles politely as the couple get into position, the statue looming in the background. The man keeps talking about his family up until his wife kindly but pointedly says _dear_ , and then his sunburned cheeks are stretched in a beaming grin. Carla takes two photos, just to be safe.

“Thank you so much,” the woman says when she takes the camera back from her. Then she smiles between her and Samuel, who’s been waiting patiently at Carla’s side. “You two make a cute couple.”

For once, Carla doesn’t feel like she’s being packed up in a neat little box or backed into a glass-walled corner by those words. For once, they don’t make her face suddenly throb with a forced smile, or her bones ache with the preemptive, lifelong boredom to match it.

So when Samuel—who clearly does understand English, after all, because he flushes just like he did in the diner when he and Imelda thought Carla wasn’t looking—opens his mouth to correct her, Carla cuts him off.

“Thank you,” she tells the woman. “Enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

“And you enjoy the rest of your evening, now.” With that, she and her husband walk away.

When Carla turns back around to face Samuel, he’s wearing an odd expression. “What?” She asks softly.

He gazes at her for a moment. Then he breaks into a smile, shaking his head, and points at something behind her. “Have you ever been in there?”

She glances over her shoulder. It doesn’t take her long to find what he’s talking about—in the distance, the entrance to the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum is lit up like a beacon.

“No. Just the Prado.” And that had been because Polo’s moms were sponsoring a scholarship there, but she doesn’t say that. “Have you?”

He nods. “I used to take advantage of the free admission times, back when I _had_ the time, that is. I would wander for hours. It’s been a while since I’ve been to any of the museums.”

Carla slips her hand back in his and begins to pull him down the block.

“Wait, what are you doing?” He catches on quickly, though. “We don’t have—”

“Samuel,” she says, meeting his eye. He instantly quiets. “Nothing I’ve done since I left _Monarch_ has been against my will. I know I don’t have to. I want to.”

“Oh.” Carla watches his nerves wash away as that smile comes back. 

“Yeah.” She gently tugs on his arm. “Let’s go?”

“Lead the way.”

A comfortable silence falls over them as they begin the straight-shot walk to the museum, pressing closer together when the crowd is particularly thick so they don’t get separated. _This is nice_ , Carla thinks. She’s a little cold and her feet are beginning to hurt, but Samuel’s hand is warm in hers, the smell of him is enough to distract her from the pain, and it’s nice. 

“Did you even want to go on a date with that guy in the first place?” Samuel asks her while they wait for the crosswalk light to change. She glances at him. “I was just thinking. You said you haven’t done anything you didn’t want to do since you _left_ the restaurant. Not before.”

The edge of her lips twitch in a small smile. “To be honest, no. I tried to give some bullshit excuse, but Lu wasn’t buying it. I almost decided to just not show up.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I’m not sure, really,” she answers, then squeezes his fingers meaningfully. “I’m glad I did, though.”

He grins. “Me too.”

The light finally switches, and they continue walking ahead. “What was your first impression of me?”

“Fishing for compliments?”

She scoffs. “Please, I don’t need to. You’ve been giving them out freely.” He laughs at that. “But no, I’m just curious.”

“You really want to know?”

She playfully nudges him with her elbow. “That bad, huh?” 

“No, it’s just… I thought you were beautiful. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” It’s ridiculous how it makes her cheeks warm up; again, it’s not like she’s never heard this before. Coming from Samuel, though… it’s different. Perhaps it’s in the way his voice gentles as he says it, the slight lowering of his eyelashes, his thumb resting on the backs of her knuckles. “Too beautiful for that asshole. But I also thought you were going to be just like the rest of them. Snobby, self-superior.”

Most of them were, honestly. “That’s fair. However,” Carla says, shooting him a sly glance, “wasn’t it you who told me not to judge a book by its cover?”

“Okay, in my defense, a lot of the ‘books’ that come into the restaurant tend to be the same,” he says with another laugh. “Anyway, it became obvious early on that you weren’t.”

“Obvious to _you_ , maybe. I saw all the looks you kept sneaking me every time you came back to the table.”

“I felt bad. You seemed so bored.”

“Bored barely begins to cover it,” she replies. “But, you know. I found a way to pass the time.”

“How’s that?”

“Well,” she begins nonchalantly, “the waiter wasn’t so bad to look at, for one.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Carla nods. “Yeah. I liked his hair. I’ve always liked curly hair. His smile was cute, too.” Samuel hums along, the neutral sound belied by the pleased expression on his face. “Kind of short, though. I’m taller than him in heels.”

“Hey,” he says, pinching her side lightly.

“I’m not finished,” she laughs. “His ass more than makes up for it.”

“You were looking at my ass?”

“Of course. Why do you think I tipped you so much?”

She skips away from the pinch this time, going as far as their outstretched arms will let her. She beams widely, and he does too, pulling her back over to him; only he lifts his arm so that she can tuck herself against him now, their hands still entangled in front of her chest.

Once more, that thrill shivers through her. Samuel, misreading it, just holds her closer. She’s far from complaining. 

They get to the museum and pay their way inside. It’s not nearly as busy as it’d be in the day and the few people who _are_ here look like locals, but the way Samuel smiles as he takes in the room doesn’t seem to be borne out of relief to finally be away from so many tourists. It’s a little infectious, if Carla’s being completely honest, her lips quirking while she observes the excitement practically radiating off of him.

Then he whisks her off to the nearest gallery, complimenting the pieces he likes, pointing out the different techniques and colors and details to her, and critiquing the ones he doesn’t in that surprising, sly humor of his, his lips pressed close to her ear while she stifles her laughter behind her hand. Or well-placed coughs, when their giggling earns them a glare or two from some of the others in the room. Going back-and-forth with him is something she’s good at; most importantly, it’s something she _enjoys_ , and even though she doesn’t know much about art in the slightest, she still doesn’t find herself bored at all. 

Listening to Samuel talk about art isn’t like listening to Salvador drone on about parties and yachts. It’s not even like how Polo’s mom used to talk about it, dragging Carla from room to room in their house to showcase her newest pieces with the pretentious air of someone rich enough to afford their own private collection, sounding as if she was speaking absolute nonsense. 

No, with Samuel, it’s _passionate_. When something catches his eye, he notices every little thing about it, and every single one of them fascinates him. It’s less terrifying when you aren’t the subject of that intense attention. Watching him speak so appreciatively and enthusiastically, his eyes lit up with it, _lost_ in it… truthfully, Carla thinks it’s beautiful.

 _He’s_ beautiful. She’s beyond fighting her nonsensical thoughts. Now she’s leaning into them, and Samuel isn’t just pretty, cute, _nice to look at_. He’s beautiful like how he’d described her: the most beautiful thing Carla’s ever seen. Beautiful like open fields dotted with sun-soaked flowers, or rosy cheeks, or an angel’s wings.

She’s been attracted to him since the moment they met, so it’s not like right now’s the first time she’s gotten the urge to kiss him. She just thinks it’d taste different here—between these peach-colored walls, with exhilaration on his lips and something new and honeyed in her chest.

Carla must be staring, because Samuel turns his head to look at her, eyebrows raised a little. 

“What is it?” He asks quietly. Then realization dawns on his face, and he rubs the back of his neck with an embarrassed chuckle. “I’m sorry. I’m getting a bit carried away, aren’t I?”

She shakes her head, smiling reassuringly. “I don’t mind,” she tells him. “You really love it, don’t you? Art.”

He takes a deep breath, gazing at the painting he’s been talking about for the past several minutes. “Yeah, I do.” 

“Why aren’t you studying it, then?” His eyes fall a bit, and Carla drags her hand down his arm. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s okay. I did want to study it, but it wasn’t practical for me. Money’s always been tight.”

It suddenly occurs to her that she doesn’t know whether he’s a student or not. “Are you going to school now? For something else?”

“No,” he answers with a tiny, rueful smile. “I was, though. Pre-law. But I had to drop out because my brother got into trouble and I needed to pick up more shifts to help my mom pay his bail. Ironic, I know.”

He chuckles again, this time dryly. Without thinking, Carla reaches up and brushes a fallen strand of hair away from his forehead and quietly says, “I’m sorry.”

“Nano’s always been in and out of jail. I’m used to it,” he replies, shrugging dismissively.

“That too, but I meant… I’m sorry you had to put your own life on hold to save your family’s. I know how it feels.” He looks up at her, waiting for her to continue with dark, patient eyes. “I’ve been cleaning up my parents’ messes for a while now. Sometimes it seems like _I’m_ the parent.”

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly, like he’s personally aware of what she means. “This is why you were forced to study business, right?”

She nods. “Have you heard of Marquesado de Caleruega wineries? They’re my mom’s. Well, mine, actually. My dad used to be involved in running them, but he’s always been wrapped up in shady shit, too. My final year of high school, I found myself head of the company.” Carla presses her lips together, cocking her head to the side. “I don’t want it to seem like I’m complaining. I still have my family’s money, reputation, I just… I don’t know.”

“You were forced to grow up too soon, too fast,” Samuel supplies. Again, he says, “I get it.”

A smile tugs at her lips. “You’re annoyingly understanding, do you know that?” He laughs. “And, also, annoyingly easy to talk to.”

“I could say the same thing about you.” He nudges his shoulder against hers, grinning. “So, a marchioness, huh?”

Carla rolls her eyes. “It’s mostly just a title. Old-fashioned bullshit meant to make the wine label sound more grand and appealing.”

“Honestly, knowing you own a wine company just makes your date ordering the most expensive bottle on the menu kind of funny.”

“And it wasn’t even that good.”

“Do guys try to mansplain wine to you a lot?”

“You have no idea. It’s mostly the investors—you know, old men. But they’re condescending about everything, especially since they resent the fact that I’m a twenty-two year-old woman and not my dad, so I’m used to them and their misogyny. It’s the guys who are my age that are the worst, watching them swirl it around in their mouth and make up some nonsense about floral notes. I know they usually just spend their nights knocking back tequila shots in whatever club they find themselves in.”

“Luckily for you, you don’t ever have to worry about me doing that. I’m telling you outright that I don’t know shit about wine.”

Carla’s stomach flutters with the implication of them spending more time together beyond tonight, but she conceals it with a teasing smirk. “How unsophisticated.”

“That doesn’t mean I’d ever refuse your expert opinion, though. How do you think wine would pair with macaroni?”

“Why? Is that the plan for our second date?”

His eyebrows knit together. “What would we do on our first date?”

“Samuel,” she tuts, patting him on the cheek. “This _is_ our first date.”

She saunters past him, secretly beaming at the dazed look on his face. He’s observant, detail-oriented—and totally oblivious at the same time, it seems. 

He catches up with her quickly, sliding his fingers over her hip. “Two first dates in one night. I don’t think I’ve heard of such a thing before.”

“Well, you see, I’m in high demand. In fact, I have another guy waiting for me after this.”

Samuel laughs, delighted, and guides her to the next gallery room. 

The two of them continue to drift around, Samuel talking about the art and Carla listening, mostly, but also still playing with the thought of his lips on hers in the back of her mind. And she’s beginning to learn that Samuel himself is an even more effective way of making time pass by than people-watching, because before she knows it, the museum is closing and they’re shuffling back into the cool evening air.

Although Carla had been joking about the whole guy-waiting-for-her thing, it’s still a natural time as ever to part ways now; for her and Samuel to call it a night.

They don’t, though. It doesn’t even cross her mind, and she’s sure it doesn’t cross Samuel’s, either. He just wordlessly shrugs himself out of his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders, and they keep aimlessly walking the city. They bounce from each tourist attraction almost as quickly as they go between conversation topics, though both are briefly put on pause as they take a quick stop into a corner store so Carla can pick up a pair of cheap sandals to give her feet a break. 

Only, they also come out with a bottle of cava—half-empty now, on account of the fact that they’ve been passing it back-and-forth over the past ten minutes. Carla can’t help but laugh, because if Lu saw her at the moment, she’d probably have a stroke. Or tell her that she’s gone insane.

Part of Carla would have a hard time contesting that. It might agree, even.

The other part can’t bring herself to care. 

“What’s so funny?”

She glances up to find Samuel watching her, an amused smile curling on his lips, and shakes her head dismissively. “Just… this. None of this is me whatsoever.”

“You don’t normally take tipsy, late-night strolls through Retiro? Now look who’s unsophisticated,” he teases, grasping the bottle from her fingers and tilting it to his mouth. He just barely manages to avoid spilling it down his front when Carla playfully shoves him, instead spluttering it all over the ground. 

“Still you.”

She smirks at his narrowed gaze and steals the alcohol back. Peripherally, she notices how he watches the column of her throat as she takes a swig, but his eyes are already averted by the time she swipes her wrist over her mouth.

They continue to leisurely follow the path they’re on, and Carla looks across the park; it’s weird seeing it so dark and empty, devoid of people. Everything is quiet except for the occasional distant rush of water and the sounds of their footsteps. Madrid is such a lively, loud, boisterous city; always moving, always awake. She hadn’t been aware that there was a part of it that just… _wasn’t_ , especially one that was usually so busy. It’s almost like a metaphor for her life. 

“I meant all of _this_ in general, though,” she elaborates after a moment. “Everything about tonight. I don’t do stuff like this; I’m not spontaneous.”

“So what would you be doing if you weren’t with me, then?”

She lifts the bottle in front of her face to inspect the label. “I’d still probably be getting drunk,” she says, making him chuckle. “But in a club somewhere, and only after Lu drags me to it.”

“There’s nothing spontaneous about a last-minute night out?” He asks, more of a dry statement than an actual question.

“Nope, nothing at all,” she responds succinctly.

But Samuel’s still looking at her with a little disbelieving smile on his face, and Carla sighs, because she doesn’t even need to think it over before she starts reciting a play-by-play of her typical Friday night.

“It’s always the same every weekend. I say I don’t want to go out, Lu and I argue about it, I eventually agree just to get her to drop it and also because I have nothing else better to do anyway. We go to the same club because her brother, Valerio, has an in with the owner. I get champagne, Lu orders a martini, and it takes precisely three and a half of them before she wants to start dancing. If Valerio’s in town, he joins us, but then she spends the whole night babysitting him—that’s probably the biggest variable. Sometimes she succeeds in keeping him in check, other times he convinces her to let loose with him. A few of our other friends are probably there, too.” She shrugs at his expression, equal parts impressed and amused. “Like I said, it’s all the same.”

He turns thoughtful for a moment, then blows out a breath.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He tilts his head. “About it all being the same. Not about the partying.”

She huffs, passing him the cava. “What would _you_ be doing if you weren’t with me?”

“Watching TV, honestly, if not already sleeping,” he says after a drink. “Exciting stuff, I know. But before that, I’d get home, take a shower. Make something for dinner so that my mom can bring the leftovers into work, otherwise she won’t eat anything but junk between her shifts.”

She remembers what he sounded like after she told him how she felt like she was the parent in her family. His voice takes on the same cadence now, eyes lowering a bit. It disappears just as quickly, however; he leans his head back, turning it towards her with a wide, easy grin.

“Although, if I was feeling _spontaneous_ , I’d skip all of that and let Omar drag me out to the club, too.”

Carla raises an eyebrow. “And what would you do at this club?”

“Oh, the usual. Dance. Drink.” His eyes are twinkling as he hands the bottle back to her. “See a beautiful blonde sitting in the VIP section, sipping champagne and looking bored. Omar will tell me she’s way out of my league. I’d definitely agree with him. And then he’d try to get me to talk to her anyway.”

“Would you?”

“After several rum and cokes, yeah. Or a two-hundred dollar tip.”

“Well, sure.”

He grins. A moment passes. “But then again, maybe I’d just go for it. Life is short, you know?”

Carla’s never felt that way. She’s always been under the notion that life is monotonous, long-winded—but tonight has proven her wrong. And she doesn’t want to go back to that. 

“It is.” She looks Samuel up and down, a slow smirk curling on her lips and taking his attention off the significance she can feel in her eyes. “Sort of like you, huh?”

Samuel lets out a low growl and lunges for her without warning, lips twitching in a smile, and Carla squeals uncharacteristically as she darts just out of his grasp. She runs away from him on the path, something that’s much easier to do now that her heels are dangling from his fingers, but it’s also never been her strong suit. By the time she stops at a large fountain a couple feet away, she’s breathless with exertion and laughter, both preventing her from properly fighting Samuel off as he catches her from behind, his arms wrapped around her middle. She still tries, albeit half-heartedly, and the bottle of cava gets knocked askew into a nearby bush. 

He doesn’t even falter at the loss of their alcohol. He only tightens his hold on her, grinning into her hair. “You should leave the stand-up comedy to me. I don’t really see you having a future in it.”

Carla’s own lips are stretched so wide that her cheeks are beginning to ache with it. She leans into his chest, her hand coming to rest atop his forearm. 

“Hmm. I’m more for practical jokes, anyway,” she says, then squirms deliberately, using his subsequent surprise to hip-check him away from her and toward the reflecting surface of the fountain’s pool. He doesn’t tumble in like she’d planned, though; instead, he catches her by the wrists and takes advantage of the momentum to turn them around, and suddenly, it’s Carla who’s precariously balanced over the fountain’s ledge. If Samuel were to let her go, she’d fall right in.

He’s clearly aware of it too, because when she glares at him, he looks smug. And way too daring for her liking.

“Don’t even think about it, Samuel,” she warns in the sharpest, steeliest voice she can muster, but he adopts an innocent expression and doesn’t budge an inch. 

“Think about what, Carla?”

“You’re not cute.”

“So now you’re a liar _and_ a hypocrite?”

“A hypocrite,” she echoes flatly.

Samuel nods. “You had no issue with getting me wet a minute ago,” he says with a smile on his lips that Carla stares at as he pulls her in. He doesn’t move back once she’s on her feet again, so when she tilts her chin up a tad, the tips of their noises brush together. It’s his turn to look at her lips now, and the downward sweep of his eyelashes as he does are unbelievably thick. 

Part of her—the part that’s definitely gone insane—wants to kiss every single one of them almost as much as she wants to kiss him on the mouth.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” is what she says instead of doing either of those things, pushing him back with a finger against his chest.

“Liar,” she hears him call out as she saunters toward a nearby stretch of grass, and she laughs with her back turned to him, not needing to see how he’s grinning again. 

They sprawl out on the grass, their shoulders touching, hands resting on either of their stomachs, staring up at the night sky. For some reason, she’s suddenly hit with a sense of nostalgia; she can count the amount of times she’s been to a park on one hand, but she sort of feels how she used to when she and Marina would float on their backs in Carla’s pool, the sun warming their skin. Weightless. _Happy_.

That was from a time where Carla truly _was_ happy, she realizes. Not happy like she convinced herself she was in later years, and not happy like she pretends she is now. She doesn’t exactly miss being a kid, but everything was so simple back then. 

And simplicity, she also realizes, is something she’s rapidly growing to appreciate. 

“I lied to you earlier, too,” Carla says all of a sudden. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Samuel turning his head to look at her. “Or, not lied. It was actually the truth, but it also felt like a cop-out answer.”

“What did you not lie to me about?” His words are teasing, but his tone is soft; barely above a whisper, like he’s just now realized how quiet the park actually is and doesn’t want to disturb it anymore than they already have.

“You asked me if I’ve ever been in love and I told you that I didn’t know. But at one point in my life, I used to be so sure I was.” 

Samuel doesn’t speak, most likely sensing that she’s not finished yet. He patiently waits for her as her eyes drop to a lower, unspecified point in the sky. 

“His name is Polo,” she begins a moment later. “He’s the only guy I’ve ever dated—we got together when we were kids and dated for so long that we were practically engaged. He and I were something that just… always was, and everyone expected us to also always _be_ , even me. But then, I don’t know. We started to get bored of each other, and I realized first that we were only together because it was just that: expected of us. Just like everything else in our lives. He refused to see it.”

Because Polo had always been blinded by her. Carla was his sun; he rose and fell with her. Some may think of that as romantic, but Carla, even before her eyes were opened, never really saw it that way. It was more like she was aware that she had Polo in the palm of her hand, and that wasn’t healthy. 

“Lu used to tell me this quote by Oscar Wilde all the time. ‘Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.’ And Polo didn’t. He loved me like a concept, an ideal,” she continues. “Like someone would love a god.”

Carla’s never been spontaneous, but she’s never been a coward, either. She turns to look at Samuel now, and his eyes are soft and dark when she does, staring deep into her own. 

“I don’t know anything about love, _real_ love, what it feels or looks like. But I do know that maybe Oscar Wilde had no idea what he was talking about, because you make me feel ordinary, and it’s way more exhilarating than anything I’ve ever experienced before.”

It’s nonsensical. Insane. And if she’s given too much time to think about it, it’s just plain stupid. 

Luckily, though, Samuel hardly gives her any time at all. He just gazes at her for a second, still silent—no, _contemplative_ , she finally notes—and then he shifts onto his side, going slow enough to give her the opportunity to move away, and kisses her when she doesn’t. 

It starts off slow and gentle, the both of them offering each other the chance to ease into it. Samuel’s hand comes up to brush her hair back from her face, and one of hers rests on his chest. His lips are sweet from the cava, a little cold from the air, and the contrast in temperature when his tongue teases at her makes her involuntarily release a gasp into his mouth.

The noise is so low it can barely be constituted as one, but it’s what causes the tension to snap nonetheless. Samuel’s fingers tighten in her hair; Carla’s teeth graze his bottom lip. She curls her hand into the front of his shirt and pulls slightly, trying to communicate without stopping the kissing that she wants him on top of her. He gets it, rolling the rest of the way over until their bodies are pressed as close as possible, their legs slotted together. 

Carla cups his face. He sucks on the tip of her tongue, and she suddenly feels far more intoxicated than she had just thirty seconds ago; she does break the kiss, but only so that she can guide his head as he mouths along her jawline, down her throat, and over the tops of her breasts.

“Are we really going to do this right now?” He pants somewhat dubiously, somewhat hopefully into the mid-cutting V of her dress’ neckline. “Right here?”

She draws him back up to her mouth, unbuttoning the first couple of buttons on his shirt. A sliver chain slips out; she hadn’t noticed it before. “There’s no one else around,” she says plainly.

“Thought you said you weren’t spontaneous,” Samuel counters, but a knowing grin is slowly spreading on his lips, in sync with her own.

“Just bold. There’s a difference.”

He hisses lowly as she tilts her hips against his arousal, and she smiles and leans in to continue kissing him. She’s had all sorts of kisses before. Most of them with the same guy, of course, but five years certainly leaves a lot of room for different types to be learned and shared. 

None of them have ever been like this. Dizzying. Devouring. Bruising and gentle at the same time. That’s how Samuel kisses her, with just as much burning passion as he shows for art, like he’s trying to commit every detail of her to memory. For once in her life, she doesn’t lead it, but neither does he. They’re simply on the same page. Equals.

She slides her hands up, fisting them in his hair at the same moment as he begins dragging the backs of his fingers along her inner thigh. Carla parts her lips on a soft, breathy sound, nodding encouragingly and spreading her legs a little. 

But before he can touch her where she needs him to, another hiss fills the air. It doesn’t come from either of them, though. It’s more spluttery, mechanical, and they both pull away in confusion, panting slightly.

Carla frowns at the unknown interruption. “What—”

Without any further warning, a spray of water suddenly shoots out at them. She shrieks in surprise at the same time as it clicks: the park’s sprinkler system.

Samuel reacts first, pulling her up to her feet. “Come on!”

Their combined laughter rings out around them as they futilely attempt to outrun the water’s reach, booking it hand-in-hand across the lawn towards the distant and dry safety of the bike path. They sound loud, giddy, and absolutely hysterical, she knows. Like _children_.

Samuel’s denim jacket feels five pounds heavier now, but her chest also feels unbelievably light.

“So much for not getting wet,” Samuel scoffs, looking down at himself with a grin. Parts of his shirt are a little damp and his jeans are probably worse, though they’re dark, so it’s hard to tell. His shoes are squelching though, and that just makes her snicker again. The tips of Carla’s hair are dripping, and he reaches out to touch them, his expression teasing. “But, hey. Mermaids are supposed to like water, right?”

She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth and smacks him on the shoulder. But she also uses her other hand to wrap around his wrist and pull him in for another kiss; slower now, if not any less electrifying. 

“Seems like the universe doesn’t want us to fuck in a park,” he murmurs amusedly when they part, a small smile still on his lips.

Carla leans their foreheads together, closing her eyes with a soft breath. She smooths her hands down his collarbones and rests them on his chest. “Yeah.”

“And walking around the city in wet clothes isn’t really ideal,” he adds.

“It’s probably for the best,” she sighs, disappointed at the prospect of their evening finally coming to an end. “It’s late, you must be tired. You’ve been on your feet all day.”

He shrugs. “I’m used to it. Besides,” he says, hands gently squeezing her hips, the point of his nose nuzzling into her cheek, “I don’t want this night with you to end.”

Carla smiles to herself. She slowly opens her eyes and meets his bared, honest gaze. Beneath her palms, his heart is thumping steadily and solidly, and she wonders if she still makes him nervous. If he hadn’t said anything, she would have never known that she does in the first place.

“What time did you say your mom’s shift starts?”

*

The door of Samuel’s apartment slams loudly behind them as they stumble inside, rattling the wall a little under the force he’d kicked it shut with. Carla doesn’t care in the least, however; that would require breaking their kiss again, and she’s not in the mood to entertain any more interruptions.

She knows that they’re still on the same page when Samuel roughly pushes her up against another wall and grinds his thigh between her legs.

Carla moans and bites on his lip. He’s barely touched her and she feels like all of her self-control has gone out the window, although maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised—it’s a testament of their entire… well, relationship doesn’t seem like the right word, not quite, but _connection_ , she supposes. They’ve been intense almost from the get-go. 

It doesn’t even occur to her that this might be happening too fast. People have sex on first dates all the time. One-night-stands are a thing; Carla’s even participated in a few. But besides that, it doesn’t occur to her because she feels as if she knows Samuel too well for this to be nothing but just two people—who were complete strangers mere hours ago—hooking up. 

“What’s your last name?” She asks, their breaths mingling hotly together.

“García,” he answers between kisses. “Why?”

Samuel goes with her easily as she moves off the wall and steers him in the direction of the couch she’d caught glimpses of earlier over his shoulder, although he does make it slightly difficult when he flicks his tongue against hers. 

“It’s the one thing I don’t know about you.”

He chuckles into her mouth. “Okay, what’s yours?”

“Rosón.”

She must slightly misjudge where the couch is, because whatever he nudges into rattles. Still kissing her, he reaches back to steady it, fumbles with it briefly, and then a second later the room fills with soft lamplight. 

They stay right there for a moment, Samuel leaning against what Carla now registers is a side table and her pressed up along his front. His hands grip her ass, pulling their hips together, and she nips down the warm, stubbly length of his throat. His resulting groan sends vibrations through her swollen lips, the sensation lingering even after he cups her face and brings her mouth back to his.

Their clothes had mostly dried on the cab ride over here, so it’s not really a struggle for Samuel to peel her out of his jacket; she vaguely hears it dropping to the floor and doesn’t pay it a second thought past throwing his plaid down alongside it once she gets the buttons undone and tears it off of him, leaving him in a plain undershirt. Carla’s almost annoyed with the layers, just wanting to feel his skin beneath her touch already. She fists her hands in his shirt, pulling him away from the table and half a step to the side so that he’s standing in front of the couch now, and promptly shoves him down.

Samuel stares up at her, lust and desire evident in his eyes. They widen fractionally as she lowers herself to her knees between his legs and kisses over his collarbones, then his chest, moving lower still. When she pushes the hem of his t-shirt up and starts placing wet kisses down the trail of soft dark hair revealed to her, his toned abdomen jumps underneath her lips in a disbelieving laugh.

“This is weird, no? You and me,” he says breathlessly. Carla pulls back, glancing at him with a sultry smirk, and starts unbuckling his belt. He doesn’t protest, so she suspects he’s only bringing this up because it actually doesn’t feel that weird to him at all but he feels like it _should_ , and is searching for confirmation that she thinks the same.

Maybe it had been weird when they were sitting across from each other in that diner. But not anymore, and she sets to prove that to him.

“You think this is weird?” She drawls, still smirking.

He nods, but it’s almost an absent response, because his eyes are honed in on her mouth. Again, he doesn’t protest as she lifts his undershirt over his head, that chain sliding over his skin. She fingers it for a moment before resting back on her haunches, popping the button to his jeans and pulling down the zipper. She looks at Samuel from beneath lowered eyelashes; he’s staring back at her, rapt with attention, so still it almost looks like he isn’t breathing.

But in the quiet of the apartment, she can hear it: the low, shivery quality to each breath he takes. And then it bursts from his chest in a deep, rumbling groan as Carla tugs his briefs down, exposing the tip of his cock to her, and sucks it into her mouth.

The sight of him, head tipped towards the ceiling, chest heaving, and hands flexing on the couch’s cushion, makes her throb. She releases him, biting her lip and gazing up at him heatedly. “How about now?”

Instead of answering verbally, Samuel leans forward and crashes their lips together. She smiles into it, returning the kiss for a moment, and then coaxes him into lying back again. He kicks his shoes aside and lifts his hips for her when she curls her fingers into the waistband of his jeans and briefs, pulling them off of him. A second later, Samuel’s hand fists in the couch’s upholstery when Carla lowers her head again.

Now, though, she doesn’t jump right into it. She softly places a kiss on his thigh, then takes him into her hand and squeezes his shaft experimentally. He hisses lowly, eyelids fluttering but not closing outright, as if he doesn’t want to stop looking at her for even a moment. Carla shifts, dragging her tongue up the line of his cock; she presses another kiss just below the head, maintaining eye contact with him the whole time.

And then she sets to devour him, just like he devours her.

She wraps her lips around him, sinking down a bit, and sucks hard. Pulls off quickly again, moving her hand up, stroking him, and mouths at his base. Samuel groans lowly, sliding his hand into his hair and pulling a little, his other gripping the arm of the couch so tightly she thinks he might rip it. When she properly takes his cock into her mouth and moans around it, he very nearly does.

His touch is gentle on her, though. He tucks her hair behind her ears, caresses her jaw with his thumb, smooths his fingers over her free hand where it’s resting on his thigh for balance. It weirdly makes her heart flutter at the same time as it turns her on even more.

The noises escaping from Samuel’s mouth steadily grow less controlled and closer in-between in a way that’s very telling, and Carla languorously eases off where she’s got him as deep as she can without choking, smiling at him as she gets to the head and lightly scrapes her teeth against it. He gasps, cock weeping, twitching in the air. That just sends a sharp pang of arousal straight through her; she finally stands up, her knees thanking her for it, and climbs into his lap.

“Fuck, Carla.”

She hums, although it turns into a gasp of her own when Samuel bites the edge of her breast.

“The fact that you’re not wearing a bra has been driving me crazy all night,” he confesses, then cranes his head back to look at her with dark eyes. “Can I touch you?”

“Yeah,” she breathes with a nod, and the word isn’t fully past her lips before Samuel is slipping her dress off her shoulders. He doesn’t even completely take it off of her, only moves it aside just enough so that her breasts spill out, the sleeves still caught around her biceps. She leans her head against his as he runs his nail over one of her nipples, then kisses him harshly. He laves his tongue over her lip. And then he shifts back down and does the same to her breast.

Carla grips his hair and pulls just like he’d done to himself a few moments earlier, except it seems to have a different effect coming from her; it makes him bite her nipple on the delicious side of rough and tilt his hips into her, searching for friction. Carla, verging on desperate for some of her own already, grinds down against his bare cock and shivers when the firm line of it makes contact with her clit.

Much to her dismay, Samuel pulls back. She’s just about to voice it when suddenly his fingers are pressing against her, and then she can’t voice anything at all except a wanton, encouraging gasp and a murmur of his name. 

He switches breasts and pushes the crotch of her panties aside at once, rubbing lightly at her. She’s wet, incredibly so—his reactions to her giving him a blowjob really did things for her—and he sinks one finger, then two, easily inside. He pumps them maddeningly slowly, but he also curls them just right, and that, coupled with the pressure of his thumb on her clit and the sweet sting of his teeth on her breasts, is enough to make her body sing.

“Does that feel good?” 

“Samuel,” is her answering moan, exhaled hotly against his temple. It _does_ feel good, but she needs more. “Go get a condom.”

Despite her words, she still makes a disapproving sound when he nods and removes his hand from the apex of her legs. He grasps her by the waist, carefully shifting them around until she’s sitting on the cushion next to him and he’s partially leaning over her, their lips still locked. 

“ _Condom_ , Samuel,” she repeats when he doesn’t move for several moments, lost in kissing her.

He huffs a laugh. “Okay, okay,” he says, getting up. “Bossy. The last thing _I_ didn’t know about _you_.”

She rolls her eyes and pushes him away. He snickers, sauntering off toward what she assumes is his bedroom, and Carla catches the tip of her finger between her teeth as she watches him go. Really, his ass is a thousand times nicer to look at when there isn’t anything covering it. 

Carla momentarily debates just getting up to follow him, but he comes back quickly. Almost a little hilariously so, like he started moving at light speed the moment he knew she couldn’t see him anymore. Her amusement must show on her face, and as if he _knows_ what she’s thinking about, he places a knee on the cushion and pulls her to him with a wry twist of his lips and a murmured _shut up_ that makes her grin. 

She stands, coaxing him into switching places with her so that he’s sprawled on the couch and she’s standing over him. She slides her dress the rest of the way off, and it isn’t even puddled around her feet before Samuel leans up with a soft noise and swirls his tongue over the skin of her lower stomach, hands coming up to her waist to steady her while hers rest on his shoulders. It feels nice, so she indulges him for a minute, but as soon as he peels her panties down and begins kissing even lower, she takes the foil packet where it’s pressed to her hip and pulls him back with her hand in his hair. She’s far from being against him going down on her, but she’s also currently way past anymore foreplay right now. They’ll have time for that later.

So without any further delay, Carla straddles his thighs, tears the packet open, and rolls the condom on him. He watches her do it, brows furrowed and breath hissing through his teeth, and then he squeezes his eyes shut as she lifts up and sinks onto him. 

She immediately starts bouncing in his lap, throwing her head back. Samuel’s hands fall to her thighs, squeezing. He slides them up to her waist, then around to her ass, holding her open as he begins meeting her thrust for thrust. It tears a ragged sound from her throat, her fingers curling in the strands of hair at the nape of his neck. They move as complimentary as they’ve been around each other all evening; she hardly has to vocalize what she needs from him, because he’s already giving it to her before she can.

The way Samuel touches her, fucks her, looks at her is not blind worship. It’s quiet, intense understanding. It’s almost overwhelming, actually. And it turns her on more than anything she’s ever known.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she whimpers as he hits a particularly deep spot within her, her eyes falling shut and her hands holding him tightly in the crook of her neck. He nods his agreement, panting, and sucks at her throat. 

She wants to see him though, so she pulls him away once again, sliding her hands down to frame his jaw. Samuel stares up at her, expression dazed, lips wet and parted. She bites them when he grasps her waist and starts guiding her movements, grinding her snugly against him; shudders when it makes her clit catches on his pelvis, sending sparks up her spine; and cries out when he wraps his arms around her, flipping her onto her back. He hoists her leg over his shoulder and presses a tender kiss to the inside of her knee, but he picks up their rhythm without missing a beat, the new angle causing Carla to arch her chest toward the ceiling.

One of Samuel’s hands comes down to pinch at her nipples, and she grabs it, sticks his index and middle fingers in her mouth and swirls her tongue around the digits. His hips snap just a tad harder, and hers stutter as she shoves his spit-slicked fingers in the divide between their bodies and presses them to her clit. She leaves him there, trusting him to not need her guidance, and digs her nails into the flexing muscles of his back. 

Her breaths get heavier and throatier as Samuel drives her straight toward the edge. He shifts her leg down so that she can wrap it around his hips, and he presses his hand to the small of her back, lifting her up so he can fuck her even deeper. A second later he’s mouthing over her shoulder, dragging a sloppy trail up to her ear.

“Are you gonna come?”

Carla latches onto him, insistently pushing against his fingers. “Just don’t stop,” she orders in a sharp, if not strained, voice.

Samuel laughs—because of the bossiness, she guesses—but complies, switching from pounding thrusts to long, deep-reaching rolls of his hips that drag right against that spot inside of her, over and over again. That, paired with how he’s circling her clit, sets her off; she tucks her face into his shoulder and feels as if all the oxygen in the room is stored in her lungs, trapped there, making her head spin.

He continues to slowly fuck her through her orgasm, but she’s seizing around him so tightly that he can barely move and he must have been close too, because a second later he releases a shocked groan, his cock twitching. The extra sensation has Carla gasping weakly, sensitive now as the tension slowly eases from her body. She pants through her nose and slides her hand down Samuel’s spine, absorbing the shivers wracking through him while he rides the rest of his climax. 

After a few moments, Carla feels his head shift beneath her palms where they’re now smoothing through his hair. He pulls back from the crook of her neck and looks at her with soft and sated eyes. She cups his face between her hands, smiling as she pulls him in for a gentle kiss.

“So maybe I did have ulterior motives, but that wasn’t one of them, I promise,” Samuel murmurs once he draws back. 

She laughs quietly and fondly. “Idiot.”

He grins, ducking back down to trail kisses along her sweaty collarbones. They lie there for another minute or so, Samuel innocently mapping the skin of her chest. Then he rubs the seam of his mouth over one of her nipples and she gasps, surprised.

“This is, though,” he says, and unceremoniously scoops her into his arms. The noise that escapes her as he rises and carries her to his room is a combination of a squeal and giggle that she’s sure has never left her lips before, but by this point, she’s way beyond being caught off-guard by the amount of firsts Samuel has drawn out of her tonight.

He lays her down on the mattress. The loss of him as he slides out of her has her moaning in slight disappointment, but then he more than makes up for it by folding himself to his knees and eating her out. Afterwards, Carla can’t help but laugh breathlessly towards the ceiling, because _yes_ , his mouth is talented indeed, and the girl at that party definitely missed out. Samuel, his face still wet from her, actually has the audacity to look bashful when she tells him this. It’s as ridiculous as it is endearing, which she supposes sums his character up perfectly.

They fuck again in the shower before collapsing back onto the bed. At some point, Samuel goes out to retrieve their discarded stuff from the living room; when he comes back, he doesn’t need to ask if she’s staying and she doesn’t need to ask if she can. It’s just another unspoken, understood thing between them. She tugs him beneath the blanket with her, settles herself in the cradle of his arms, and falls asleep mere minutes later. 

When Carla wakes up the next morning, she’s on her side still, but Samuel’s no longer wrapped around her. She checks over her shoulder and finds him sprawled on his back, his expression lax with sleep, his bare chest rising and falling evenly. The sight makes her smile. It also makes her ache. He looks cuter now, softer, but also a thousand times more beautiful. There’s a pillow crease on his cheek, disappearing into a dark layer of five o’clock shadow. His hair is wild and even curlier because of how he’d gone to bed with it slightly damp, sticking up in all sorts of directions, and the blanket is slung over his waist, hardly covering much of anything. In the dim lighting of the apartment last night, she didn’t get to fully appreciate just how muscular he is. She’d noticed in the shower as she dragged soapy hands down his abdomen, of course, but for some reason it’s different in this moment. Her fingers itch to reach out and touch him.

However, Carla invokes whatever self-control he hasn’t absolutely decimated in her and refrains. They had a long, late night, and although he said he’s used to being on his feet all the time, she wants him to sleep in. She turns her head around and spots her phone on the nightstand. Suddenly remembering that the last time she’d checked it had been when she was waiting for her abandoned cab, she grabs it and hopes it isn’t dead.

It’s not, which is somewhat surprising considering the amount of missed texts and calls she has. What isn’t surprising is how all of them are from Lu. 

Well, all except a single message from Valerio, which she reads first. It may as well be from her though, because it says: _please call my sister back, she’s ruining my beauty sleep. Not that it’s needed, but it’s still cherished._

Carla smiles to herself, scrolling through the rest of the texts. They mostly start out pissed off at her for what happened with Salvador, which she expected, before turning deceptively apathetic to the fact that she was “ignoring” Lu. But Carla’s had years of practice dealing with her best friend’s behavior, and as such, she recognizes it for what it is immediately: worry.

It makes Carla feel a little guilty, so she carefully swings her legs over the edge of the bed and sits up. She finds her underwear on the floor and pulls them on, then plucks the plaid Samuel wore yesterday from the floor after deciding that she doesn’t really feel like wrestling herself back into her dress. She just prays that his mother isn’t home as she tiptoes out of his room—it’d be more than a tad awkward if Carla were to run into her wearing nothing but panties and what is clearly her son’s shirt.

The apartment is completely quiet, which wouldn’t say much given how his mom works late hours and could be sleeping, but then she remembers how Samuel mentioned she had a double-shift. Figuring she’s in the clear, Carla walks a little further away from his room so she doesn’t wake him and raises her phone to her ear.

Lu picks up on the second ring. “What the _fuck_?”

“Good morning to you too, Lucrecia,” Carla replies, unable to help the amused smirk tugging at her mouth.

“No, it isn’t a good morning. I get you were mad at me or whatever, but don’t you think the passive aggressive radio silence was a bit much?”

Her guilt rears its head again as she releases a tiny, contrite sigh. “I’m sorry, it wasn’t on purpose. I honestly just forgot to check my phone.”

“Honey, please.” She can almost see how Lu rolls her eyes. “I’m supposed to believe that? You’re basically glued to the thing.”

“Well, it’s the truth. I was kind of…” She trails off, biting her lip. “...busy last night.”

“Busy,” Lu says flatly. “Doing what, exactly.”

“I was on a date.”

“I know that. I also know that it was prematurely cut short, because Salvador called me after and gave me a migraine-inducing earful. Try again, dear.”

Carla frowns. “He really called you?”

“Yes, to whine and bitch like I was his mother, the only woman alive willing to put up with and coddle his misogyny. He called you all sorts of uncreative things, then he blamed me for whatever happened, so I verbally castrated him.” _Her speciality_ , Carla thinks amusedly. “What did happen, anyway?”

“Nothing, really. He was being an asshole and I put him in his place,” Carla says with an irritated scoff. “Honestly, his ego is so fragile it’s a wonder how it hasn’t crushed under how much he depends on it.”

Lu laughs lightly. “Yeah, I see that now.” There’s a brief pause. “I’m sorry I set you up with him.”

It’s not often Lu apologizes, so Carla figures she must be feeling her own guilt, too. “Don’t be. It ended up working out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you. I went on a date.”

“You’re not serious.” In reply, Carla hums in affirmation. “With who?”

“The waiter.”

“The...? Wait. You mean, the one who was serving you while you were currently on a date with Salvador?”

Carla smiles, looking down and playing with the soft, worn hem of Samuel’s shirt. “Yeah. We spent the whole night together, just walking around the city. I’m at his apartment right now, actually.”

Another first. Carla doesn’t ever stay over at a one-night-stand’s place; something that Lu knows.

“What?” She asks, incredulous. 

“You’re the one who wanted me to start dating again.”

“But—” Lu abruptly cuts off with an impatient noise. “Carla, have you gone insane?”

That draws another smile out of her. Hearing the sound of footsteps, Carla turns and finds Samuel coming out of his bedroom, rubbing blearily at his eyes and wearing nothing but a fresh pair of sweatpants that cling low on his hips. She smiles wider.

“Definitely,” she answers. “Listen, I’ll call back and tell you everything later, okay? I gotta go.”

She hangs up amidst Lu’s confused and indignant protests, smiling as Samuel walks over to her, envelops her in his arms, and sleepily tucks his face into her neck. 

“Everything okay?” He asks, his voice hardly more than a muffled, delicious rumble.

She nods. “Yeah, that was just Lu. I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she adds apologetically.

“You didn’t.” Samuel leans back, picking up her hand and toying with it. He stares at the movement a little too studiously, and she watches him watch it. “Do you need to leave?”

Realistically, Carla knows they’ll have to part ways soon. He’ll eventually need to go into work, and she has her own responsibilities to handle. Life won’t just stop for them.

It can be put on pause, though.

“No. Wanna get breakfast? I know an amazing American diner nearby.”

“Does the waitress happen to be named Imelda?”

“Oh, you know her? Small world.”

By now, Carla’s well-aware of how that dimple is her downfall.


	8. tribulation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They used to be comfortable in the quiet, just the two of them. But the silence that falls over them now is far from that. It’s tense, painstaking, and Samuel fucking hates it. He hates _this_. It’s almost worse than if she never came at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for: this fills many general angst prompts i got, but specifically for **julie**
> 
> rating: mature
> 
> prompt: angsty s4 reunion
> 
> additional tags: angst, hurt/comfort. i played with the theme of samuel progressively getting angrier and darker in s3 and he more or less has a real problem with alcohol in this fic, but it’s just stated/implied. this is also set in the middle of his repeat school year at las encinas
> 
> title from the song by matt maeson because it hurts (sorry kesh ily <3)

Samuel is no stranger to being hurt. He’s been mugged on the job, ran off the road by a car full of drug dealers, punched in the face on more than one occasion… not to mention the psychological hurt he’s endured in such a short amount of time since starting at Las Encinas. So, no, he’s no stranger to it at all.

But in this moment, as he slowly blinks his eyes open and comes into consciousness, he swears he’s never been in more excruciating pain in his entire life.

Every square inch of his body feels like it’s been set aflame, the sensation so intense that he has to blink back a few sudden, wayward tears. Even the slight stretch of his torso as he breathes has him throbbing from head to toe, but he grits his teeth, trying his best to stay silent. He doesn’t want to alert anyone that he’s awake just yet, in favor of taking in his surroundings.

What he finds makes it immediately clear that he’s in a hospital room, and suddenly all the memories of _why_ he’s here come rushing back in all at once. Being angry again. Being _drunk_ again. Getting on his bike because he couldn’t stand to be in his apartment anymore, not by himself, not with every single memory, good and bad, there to mock and laugh at him from between the four walls of his living room. And he remembers the headlights of the car right before it slammed into him; the resulting grind of asphalt on his skin.

Fuck. That last part must explain the burning, then.

It takes a great amount of effort—and an even greater wave of fresh pain—to lift his head off the pillow and inspect himself. The hospital gown they’d put him in and the blanket draped low over his hips hides most of the damage from his searching eyes, but his right arm is scraped up pretty badly. He doesn’t doubt that if he turned it over, his palm would be even worse. The blinking red light of the pulse monitor on his finger seems like a warning not to even try it, almost, so he turns to inspect his other one—

And that’s when he finally registers the slender fingers entwined with his own on the mattress. He follows the length of the arm up and finds himself staring at a girl he hasn’t seen or spoken to in nearly six months.

Carla is curled up on a chair pushed next to the bed, her knees drawn to her chest. Her head is resting on what looks like some sort of bundled jacket, propped up as a makeshift pillow and buffer between her temple and the sharp edge of the side table.

Honestly, she looks nearly as uncomfortable as he feels. She’s also fast asleep.

She can’t be real. Maybe the drugs they’ve most likely got him hooked up to are affecting his mind more than they’re doing anything to ease the pain, because Carla can’t be here. She’s in—well, wherever the hell she’d gone to; he doesn’t really know, but it’s certainly not Spain, certainly not Madrid, and certainly not this small hospital room. This isn’t her. He’s fucking hallucinating, imagining the same shit he always does when he’s two bottles deep in whatever alcohol he can get his hands on: her voice, wavering slightly as she said that she won’t remember him in five years. Her eyes, filled with pain as she stared back at him from within the arms of another man. Her lips, curled up in a sad smile as she told Samuel that she was leaving. Her face. Her, her, _her._

But Samuel blinks a few times and nothing changes. He _stares_ and nothing changes.

Carla isn’t wearing any makeup, her hair is pulled back, and she’s dressed more simply than he remembers ever seeing her. There’s a long coat over her body meant to serve as a blanket, but it’s sliding down because the arm she has outstretched towards him has dislodged it, and now he stares at their interlocked hands. She looks real. She _feels_ real.

Perhaps it isn’t the drugs, because those should be numbing him from feeling anything. He could have hit his head really hard; suffered some sort of brain damage. Did he put his helmet on before he got on his bike? He must have. Even with how fucked up he’s been, he isn’t _that_ stupid. 

Without thinking, Samuel starts to lift his right arm to feel around his skull for an injury.

Only, as soon as he moves, pain cracks through him like a whip—or, more appropriately, lightning, because his entire torso feels as if he’s just been struck by it. A sound caught between a groan and a gasp escapes his dry throat, his vision goes white-hot and blurry, and the fingers on his other hand instinctively and involuntarily _squeeze_ , searching for an anchor against the agony wracking through him. 

“Samuel?” He hears her voice through the blood rushing in his ears, and she sounds real, too. Whatever’s influencing his imagination is doing a pretty good fucking job. “Samuel! Fuck.”

He wrenches his eyes open, not even realizing he’d shut them. Her eyes. Her lips. Her face. Hazy, out of focus, but _Carla._

She’s the last thing he sees before he blacks out.

That, at the very least, he’s used to.

*

When he comes to again, the seat next to him is empty. Relief and disappointment both fill him at the same time, but they’re made fuzzy by the morphine coursing through his system. They must have given him a stronger dose.

He flexes his hand and swears he can still feel her touch.

“Hey, you’re awake.”

He looks up. A soft smile and a head of blond hair greets him, but neither of them belong to her; he blinks a few times until his vision focuses on the sight of Guzmán standing over him, though his smile turns worried when Samuel opens his mouth to speak and practically nothing comes out.

“Here,” Guzmán says, pouring some water into one of the plastic cups on the table. He supports Samuel’s head and guides the straw between his lips for him, and Samuel drinks greedily, feeling the water hit his empty stomach. It’s cold and comforting. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a car,” he rasps.

The other man chuckles. “Joking. That’s a good sign.”

Instead of smiling with him, Samuel stares at the empty chair. “How long have I been out?”

It’d been… one in the morning when he left his apartment, he thinks. Obviously, time gets blurry; time is something he usually longs to _forget_. He doesn’t remember whether it was dark outside or not when he first woke up, and then he reminds himself that that doesn’t matter anyways, because that had only been a dream.

But then Guzmán answers, “Almost two days. You woke up briefly; around halfway, maybe. I don’t know if you remember anything.”

Samuel frowns. It seems like the harder he tries to concentrate, to try and separate what was real and what wasn’t, the harder his head pounds. “I do. At least, I think I do.” 

He attempts to sit up, but Guzmán stops him with a gentle hand on his shoulder, then moves the top half of the bed using a switch on the frame. The drugs had been helping, but he instantly feels better now that there isn’t as much pressure on his back.

“What do you remember?”

“Before waking up?”

“To begin with, yeah.”

“I remember going out. And the car.” Samuel tries to focus on any other details past that, although he mostly comes up empty. He thinks he can recall the bright lights of the emergency room; urgent and raised voices; rapid footsteps. “But not much else, honestly.”

Guzmán nods, understanding. “What about after?”

Samuel scoffs quietly. That’s easy enough. “Opening my eyes, being in the worst pain of my life, then passing back out,” he replies, deciding to leave out the part where he was hallucinating a girl he’s been trying and failing to get over for way longer than the half a year she’s been gone.

“Yeah,” Guzmán blows out on a breath. “You were pretty out of it when you woke up.”

“Were you here with me?”

“I stepped out to get coffee,” he says with a shake of his head. He hesitates for the briefest of moments, gaze flicking down and away before meeting Samuel’s again. “But… Carla was.”

Through the drug-induced fog, Samuel feels his blood go cold. It’s not as soothing as the water had been. “What?”

“She was the one who got the nurses.”

She’d been real. That panic he saw on her face, heard in her voice… her hand in his… it had all been _real._ But—

Samuel’s eyes harden, but his tone is deceptively even. Calm. “Why was she here?”

“Because I called her.” Samuel doesn’t say anything; his expression must be telling enough, however, because Guzmán’s weary tone is undercut by a line of hot defensiveness as he says, “Samu, you were _hit by a car._ It was all very touch and go for a while, the doctors wouldn’t tell us anything while you were in surgery, and I felt like she deserved to know what was happening.”

Samuel opens his mouth—then pauses. _Surgery?_ It’s then that he looks back down towards his legs, and instead of a blanket, there’s just the thick white plaster of a cast encased all the way up to his right knee. So he’d been imagining _some_ things, just not the fact that Carla had actually been here with him.

Noticing his shock, Guzmán says, “A broken tibia. As well as four bruised ribs and a bunch of other cuts that required stitches. The doctor said that if you hadn’t been wearing a helmet, you…” He doesn’t say the word “died,” but it’s implied—the both of them are far too well-acquainted with death to not hear it. Suddenly, Samuel can’t look Guzmán in the eye, especially as his voice dims somewhat; not losing it’s sharp, stern edge, but now backed with what Samuel realizes is fear. “So, yes, I called Carla. And she flew in immediately.”

“Where is she now?” _Did she leave again_ , is what he really wants to ask, and he isn’t sure whether or not he wants the answer to be yes or no. 

“I don’t know. I told her to go get some food and rest in a place that wasn’t here a couple of hours ago. She hasn’t left your side since we were allowed to see you. Refused to. Wouldn’t touch any food, either.”

Samuel swallows thickly, clenching the hand she’d been holding into a fist, and turns his head away so that he’s staring out the too-bright window. “You shouldn’t have called her,” he says with finality, but Guzmán—Guzmán has never once let anyone have the final word in his life.

“Look, I know you two haven’t been talking, but you were still—” He cuts himself off at Samuel’s abrupt glare of warning. Guzmán takes a deep breath, clearly trying to hold onto his patience. “You were still something to each other. I only called to let her know what was going on. I didn’t think she was going to…”

He trails off, gesturing vaguely, then blows out a rough breath and scrubs his hand over his hair. Samuel feels a brief pang of guilt pulse through him, just now registering how exhausted his friend looks; the gray circles smudged under his eyes almost seem like bruises.

The guilt is quickly overshadowed by the anger, however; the anger that’s just been festering since last year. Guzmán had no right, and instead of apologizing for getting into a fight with him, Samuel just fixes his gaze on the wall and works his jaw.

“Anyway, we don’t have to talk about that right now,” Guzmán quietly says after a moment. “Everyone went down to the cafeteria, but they’ll want to know you’re up.”

To be honest, Samuel just wants to be alone, but he doesn’t stop the other man as he steps out of the room to get their friends. His stomach is already churning with the prospect of seeing their faces. Worry is normal; he can handle that. The disappointment is even normal by now, too. But pity? He doesn’t want or need it.

He just takes solace in the fact that Carla isn’t about to walk through that door, because truthfully, now that he knows she hadn’t just been a figment of his imagination, he’s not prepared for that in the slightest. He’s been half-caught between wanting her back and never wanting to see her again for so long, but now that the decision has been made for him, he’s not sure anymore.

The anger, he’s sure about; the confusion and the resentment and the _hurt_ that he’s been dealing with since she went away and even before then. Everything else, though…

_She hasn’t left your side since we were allowed to see you._

His thoughts are interrupted as his friends enter the room a few minutes later, shuffling in like he’s a wild, cornered animal; like he’s a time bomb ready to go off at any second. It’s a fair assessment, given how he’s been treating them all lately. Guilt settles hard and heavy on his chest again.

But then he sees their own guilt reflected across all of their faces, even Guzmán’s, now that he’s paying attention to it. What could _they_ feel guilty about? That they weren’t with him to stop his accident, stop him from taking his bike out, stop him from drinking? It’s useless. They’ve tried to intervene before, and it didn’t work. Samuel hadn’t let them. Why would last night have been any different?

He doesn’t feel like arguing with them though, not right now, so he forces just enough of a smile on his lips to ease some of the tension away. 

It works, for the time being—Rebe bounds over, making it clear that she’d hit him for scaring them if he wasn’t already injured, and Ander and Cayetana offer him smiles from over Omar’s shoulder as his best friend carefully wraps him in a hug. They talk bullshit; they fall into their normal rapport, even he and Guzmán. But Samuel knows that it’s just a tentative thing. They’re giving him space before they address the elephant in the room—the many elephants in the room. He can see it in the glances they give each other when they think he isn’t looking.

Samuel doesn’t have to stop them, however, because it’s Guzmán who subtly shakes his head at the others. Samuel pretends not to notice, just like they pretend not to notice how his eyes can’t stop flicking to the door.

Carla doesn’t return at all that night, though. Again, it’s both relieving and disappointing.

*

A broken tibia and four bruised ribs means that he’s stuck in the hospital for two weeks. The first few days go by, and Carla doesn’t show up once.

Of course, he has things that should distract him from her—his friends’ frequent visits, video chats with his mom and Nano, schoolwork; the _pain,_ most of all. Keyword: _should,_ because just like the alcohol, nothing works in the long run. His friends have to leave, eventually. Talking with his family just makes him weary, because they insist on flying back to Madrid every time and he keeps having to assure them that he’s _fine,_ otherwise they’ll come home and see how much of a blatant lie that’s been over the past several months. He tires too easily to focus on his homework. And the pain… well, he’s used to the pain. _Nothing works._ As soon as he’s left alone, his thoughts drift to Carla. 

Guzmán hasn’t brought her up again, not even when it’s just him and Samuel by themselves, with none of the others around. Samuel still itches to ask if Carla really has left Madrid and that’s why she hasn’t returned to the hospital, but he can’t bring himself to. He tells himself it’s because it’ll break the dam, this hesitant peace where nobody has scolded him yet again for his reckless, self-destructive behavior, but he knows why. Even if the uncertainty is eating him up, having a definitive answer will be a thousand times worse, so he doesn’t ask.

It turns out that he doesn’t actually have to, though. One day, when visiting hours are coming to an end and Samuel’s eyes are droopy from his latest dose of morphine as well as his pre-existing exhaustion, he hears hushed voices. They must think he’s already asleep.

“She still hasn’t come back to see him, has she?” Omar asks.

“I don’t think so,” Guzmán answers. “She hasn’t mentioned anything about it. But she also isn’t answering her phone.”

“Yeah. Lu told me she isn’t replying to her, either.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure if she’s even left her hotel room. When she showed up here, I never… I’ve only seen her look that scared once.” There’s a pause. “When she thought he was dead.”

“I don’t get it,” Cayetana interjects after a moment. “Even after that, she spent all that time acting like he never meant anything to her, she even dated Yeray, but then she drops everything to fly out here as soon as she finds out about the accident and then acts like this?”

“I’m not going to pretend like I totally get it either,” Ander says, “but—”

“She told me something, that night,” Rebe says all of a sudden.

“What? What night?”

“The night when… you know,” she replies. “She told me that the entire time she was with Yeray, she only ever thought about Samuel. She never stopped loving him.”

“Shit,” Omar sighs. “You never mentioned this to him?”

“I wasn’t sure if it would help anything. I was afraid it’d just make it worse, I don’t know.”

Another pause. Ander asks, “Then why did she leave?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? Because she loved him. And look what happens to the guys that she’s loved.”

“Oh,” multiple voices murmur.

“Yeah.”

Samuel tries not to budge an inch. It’s not all that difficult to manage considering the morphine has him feeling like he’s sinking into the mattress, but it still does nothing to slow his thoughts. In fact, they’re racing so much that, when his friends do finally leave, he doesn’t sleep at all.

His body fucking hurts. 

Now, more than ever, he wishes the pain could take his mind off of everything.

He doesn’t bring up what he overheard the next time they visit, the time after that, or even the time after that. A week passes, and he doesn’t bring it up at all. He just wants to go home as soon as possible. 

Luckily, his leg is apparently healing pretty well and at a faster rate than expected, at that. 

He’s waiting for the doctor to come back after his latest x-rays when there’s a knock on the propped-open door. He’s so lost in his own thoughts—he’s always lost in them nowadays—that he doesn’t register how hesitant it sounds, how soft; how very much unlike the usual succinct, rapt knocks of the hospital’s staff before he turns his head.

In the ten days since it happened, Samuel’s begun to remember some more things about his accident. Specifically, the moments right before the car hit him, where time seemed to slow down so much that it almost felt like it was halted altogether. He could have counted the milliseconds if he hadn’t been so hyper aware of the fact that a collision was imminent. Unavoidable.

That’s exactly what it feels like now as he meets Carla’s gaze.

Neither of them say anything. Samuel stares at Carla as she stands in the doorway, eyes widened a little like she’s actually surprised to see him here, and he would probably laugh if he could spare the breath for it. He can’t, though, because it’s all trapped up in his sternum, pushing against his still-tender ribs in tandem with his pounding heart. He hates that it’s being publicly broadcasted by the machine next to the bed, and wonders if that’s why Carla breaks first. _Pity._

“Um, hi,” she says, and he asks himself if she’s keeping her voice low because of that unspoken rule where you have to speak quietly in hospitals, or out of something else entirely. “Can I come in?”

He wants to say no. Every bone in his body, broken or otherwise, is willing him to say no. It’d probably be best if he listened.

But he can’t stop staring at her hand. Her hand, still poised mid-air from when she was knocking. The hand that was lying in his that first time he woke up. He can’t stop staring at it, just like Rebe’s words won’t stop spinning around in his head, and he nods.

That hand wraps itself around the strap of her purse; clenches it tight enough that her knuckles turn white, just like the line of her lips as she presses them together and steps further into the room. As she gets closer, she drops her gaze from his under the pretense of looking around—as if she hasn’t been here before. As if—

_She hasn’t left your side since we were allowed to see you._

He swallows and continues to look at her. Her hair is falling around her shoulders, soft-looking and loosely curled. She’s wearing what he’s used to seeing her in; that is, a skirt and sweater, designer, albeit new. Or, at least, something she’d never worn in his presence before.

And she’s got makeup on now.

It doesn’t matter how much time has passed. Ten days, or six months, or the five years that she’d dug into his heart like a jagged-edged promise… Samuel knows this for what it is. It’s a mask. He knows because he’s always seen right through it, from the moment they stood in front of Marina’s grave and had their first substantial conversation with one another. He sees through it now, too; sees that it actually hadn’t been pity that caused her to talk first, but guilt. That very same guilt scrawled all over his friends’ faces. Only, there is truth to Carla’s guilt, and they both know it.

She’s saying something, Samuel suddenly realizes. He blinks and finds her hovering a couple feet away. Close enough that he can smell her. He wants her closer and he wants her gone all in the same breath.

“What?”

“Can I sit here?” She repeats, gesturing at the very chair she’d been sleeping in. 

The permission she keeps asking for is killing him, if only because he can’t say no. 

At his nod again, Carla lowers herself into the chair. Samuel’s hand twitches at his side; hers fold in her lap and she begins fiddling with them as she looks down his body, still avoiding his eyes.

“How’s your leg?” 

“Fine,” he answers stiffly.

“It’s healing nicely?”

“That’s what the doctor says, so.” He shrugs dumbly and ignores how it tugs on his ribcage. 

Carla tries for a smile and doesn’t quite succeed. “That’s good.”

 _It’s really noisy outside, isn’t it? Non-stop, all around us,_ she’d once said to him. _It’s so quiet here._

They used to be comfortable in the quiet, just the two of them. But the silence that falls over them now is far from that. It’s tense, painstaking, and Samuel fucking hates it. He hates _this._ It’s almost worse than if she never came at all.

Carla’s eye catches on the homework folder Guzmán brought him where it’s resting on the side table, Las Encinas’ logo blazoned on the front. “Has school been treating you well?”

Again, he has the sudden urge to laugh. Since when has that fucking place ever done anything but beaten him down? She must realize it too, because her expression flickers momentarily. Some perverse part of Samuel takes satisfaction in it, seeing that mask slip, because the fact that she’s come here only to act like nothing has happened besides his accident is driving him insane. 

“I guess. Has wherever you left to been treating you well?” He counters, tone bitter.

She doesn’t flinch, but her shoulders do stiffen.

“Rome,” she tells him after a moment, words soft and slow. “And, yes. It’s been okay.”

“That’s great,” he grits out, not even trying to sound like he means it. “I’m happy for you.”

The mask slips some more. “Samuel—”

“Why are you here, Carla?”

And with that, the mask outright shatters. 

Carla stares at him, spine rigid, her hands clenched hard in her lap. Her eyes are bright with moisture, and they lance right through him. 

“Samuel,” she says again, “you know why.”

It makes him bristle. No, he doesn’t know shit. He doesn’t know why she spent the rest of last year pushing him away, he doesn’t know why she said he never meant anything to her and still acted like she had feelings for him anyway, he doesn’t know why she left, and he definitely doesn’t know why she’s _back._

He opens his mouth, heart pounding with anger and confusion, body pounding with how taut this is making him, but all that comes out is another sharp knock on the door that causes both of them to jump. Samuel winces at how all of his injuries get jostled with the sudden movement, and Carla notices, frowning at him in concern—he willfully ignores it in favor of focusing all of his attention on the doctor’s arrival. Carla’s own sudden one made him forget that he was actually expecting the doctor beforehand. 

“Mr. García?” He starts, glancing up from the charts in his hand. He blinks once, glancing between the two of them and clearly picking up on the tension in the room. With a polite smile, he says, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware you had any visitors right now.”

Samuel watches Carla swallow before she begins to rise from the chair. “It’s okay. I’ll just—”

“No, no, that’s alright, this’ll just be quick,” the doctor says, coming further into the room and effectively interrupting Carla’s attempt at leaving. She hesitantly takes her seat again. “Mr. García, I was just reviewing your x-rays. Your ribs should be completely healed within the next week or so, as long as you don’t overexert yourself too much. Your leg’s still got quite a ways to go, but like I said, it’s healing exceptionally well and faster than I expected. In fact, I think it would be more than okay for you to go home earlier than I initially told you. Today, actually. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about what we’ll do from here on out in a moment, but for now, do you have anyone that can take you home?”

“Uh, all my friends are in class right now, but I can call a cab,” Samuel answers, very deliberately not looking at Carla.

It doesn’t work, though. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, brows creased. “I’ll drive you.”

The doctor turns to Samuel for confirmation, and despite everything, he still can’t fucking say no.

*

They don’t say one word to one another the entire car ride from the hospital to his apartment. It’s easy to ignore how Carla doesn’t have to ask him for his address because Samuel spends the whole time telling himself that as soon as they arrive, he’s going to ensure that she leaves. He’s tired. Angry. Wary. He’s so many things right now that his brain is jumbled up and he completely forgets that his place is only accessible by _stairs_.

“Fuck,” he sighs when they pull up in front of it. Samuel just wants to make a quick getaway—that is, as quick as he can on crutches—but he has the worst luck in the world.

“I can help you,” Carla says. She’s no longer speaking in that sharp tone of voice she had when he tried to insist on taking a cab home, but gently now. It makes him squeeze his eyes shut.

“No. School gets out soon. There’s a bench right there, I’ll wait until Guzmán comes.”

“You shouldn’t—”

“Thanks for driving me,” he says curtly, opening his door.

“Samuel, _stop_ ,” Carla breathes, placing her hand on his arm. She draws it back just as instantly as he stiffens beneath the contact. The _first_ contact. Whispers, “Please, stop. Just… let me help you.”

He can’t bring himself to look at her; her eyes feel like they’re burning on his skin. He clenches his jaw, stares down at his lap, at his useless leg, and stiffly nods. 

Carla parks and gets out. In the time it takes her to walk around to the backseat behind him, Samuel curses his luck and his leg and his apartment and his whole entire life, and then Carla pulls out the crutches and hands them to him without a word. Before she can try to assist him, he hauls himself to his feet, already breathing harshly through his nose because of the pain. 

He’s done some minor physical therapy over the last few days, just brief walks down the corridor outside of his hospital room that couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of minutes but made him feel like he was running a marathon with fire ants crawling all over his body nonetheless. The walk from the car to the front door of his building is no different, except for the fact that back at the hospital, he had a nurse to accompany him. A very buff nurse who was prepared to catch him at any given moment. And that corridor, like this sidewalk, was a flat surface. He doesn’t know how he’s going to make it up two flights of stairs.

 _With Carla’s help,_ he’s reminded as she places a hesitant hand on the small of his back. He still tenses up, but she’d apparently been ready for it this time, because she doesn’t pull away.

“We can leave the crutches here for now,” she tells him, and he bobs his head, bracing himself against the stairs’ railing as she takes the crutches from him and leans them against the wall. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” he answers, even as every part of him is screaming _no_ because now she’s wrapping her arm around his waist and draping his over her shoulders and her hand is holding his and he’s hurting inside and out and she’s _too close,_ he can’t—

“Samuel, just one step at a time,” she says. “Breathe.”

He nods jerkily, tightening his grip on the railing. It creaks underneath the force, rattles a bit, but it holds under his weight as he takes a step. Fire immediately licks up his leg and in his torso, but he grits his teeth through it and takes another.

The pain, at least, is finally succeeding in distracting him from Carla—miraculous, given how she’s pressed up against him, the smell of her in his nose; her gentle, encouraging voice in his ear. 

He isn’t sure how much time has passed when they finally get to his floor, only that he’s breathing raggedly, he’s throbbing from head to toe, his temples and shirt are soaked through with sweat, and there are tears at the corner of his eyes. Carla doesn’t say anything about the latter, just lets him rest against the wall and catch his breath while she goes to retrieve his crutches. When she comes back, he trades her the key from his pocket for them, and she unlocks the door.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots it—the way her lips thin when the door swings open and she gets a good look at the devastation within. Samuel doesn’t have to see it to know what’s there; the bottles, the discarded to-go containers, the clothes, the spills, the _mess._ He doesn’t have to see it, because he’s lived it. Caused it.

But just like the tears, she doesn’t comment. She averts her eyes, helps him inside, and then suddenly he’s perched against the table, Carla standing before him. His chest aches for an entire different reason now—they’re almost a mirror image of the very last moment she was here, laying all of her cards out. This is where he let her go. For the first time.

Carla must be thinking the same thing, because when he looks at her, her eyes are already searching his face; lips parted on words that haven’t come yet.

Only, no, Samuel didn’t let her go the second time. She _left._ She left him.

With that, he suddenly can’t breathe. He feels like he’s suffocating, but for some reason he can’t tell her to get the fuck out, away from him—he can’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he straightens as quickly as he can, abruptly enough that Carla has to take a step back, and tightens his hold on his crutches.

“I’m going to take a shower.” In truth, he wants to lie down for the next forty-eight hours at least, but he can’t be here right now and he also can’t tell her to go, so he can only hope that by the time he gets back out, she’s already gone. 

He doesn’t let himself think about how, if she does leave, he may never see her again. For good, this time. 

“Wait,” Carla stops him, fingers on his wrist. She doesn’t let the touch linger, but her gaze does when he meets it again, if only for a fraction of a second. And then she wordlessly walks into the kitchen.

She comes back quickly, a garbage bag in her hand. Samuel doesn’t let himself think about how she remembers where everything still is, either. 

“You can’t let it get wet,” she says, gesturing at his cast.

“Oh,” he replies. “Right.”

She doesn’t stop him again as he moves away; she also doesn’t try to help him again. Each slow, agony-inducing step is humiliating, even when he no longer feels her eyes on his back.

Samuel disappears into his room, grabs things on autopilot, and intentionally doesn’t look back into the rest of the apartment on his way to the bathroom. The shower gets turned on high. He ties the garbage bag around his leg. He stares at his spider-webbed reflection in the mirror he’d broken again a while ago, and then he hauls himself beneath the water’s spray.

He used to think about what he would say to Carla if he ever got the chance again. There’s so much _to_ say, he never considered the fact that he wouldn’t voice any of them at all. 

He’s a coward, though. He’s a coward because he’s flinching away from this battle warring inside of him. He’s a coward because he stayed silent.

The shower eventually gets shut off, and Samuel doesn’t know how long he’s been in here. Long enough, maybe. He towels himself dry and ditches the garbage bag, and then pulls on his briefs and the pair of shorts he’d evidently picked out from his drawer. Only, there’s no shirt. He must’ve forgotten.

Carla is still here when he creeps back into the hallway. 

She’s still here, and she’s bending down and picking bottles up from the floor, and each clink of one against another as they get dropped into the new garbage bag she has in her hand makes his own shake just a little bit more. 

“What are you doing?” 

Carla glances up at him and looks away just as quickly. “Cleaning up.”

He shakes his head, taking a step forward. “You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“Seriously, just st—”

His sentence gets abruptly cut off as he hobbles closer and his uninjured foot slips on a knocked-over bottle she either missed or just hasn’t gotten to yet, and because he’d opted for using one crutch so he could carry his clothes with his other hand, it’s way harder to catch his balance. He tips forward. He’s in the middle of the room, not close enough to a wall or a piece of furniture to catch himself. He’s going to fall.

Or he _would’ve_ fallen, but then Carla drops the bag with a _clunk_ and darts over to him before he can. She steadies him with her hands on his bare skin, one pressed to his collarbone, the other wrapped around his bicep. The momentum still has him impossibly close to her, anyway—so close, in fact, that he has to look at her down the slope of his nose, and he can feel the soft, quick puffs of air leaving her on the corner of his mouth.

Carla stares at it. Samuel stares at her. She slowly meets his gaze, and it’s funny how he’s willing to push everything aside in this moment in favor of feeling the touch of her lips on his again.

He leans closer, just a fraction. Carla’s lips part and he brushes his mouth against her cupid’s bow in the barest of touches, so bare that Samuel wouldn’t think it even happened were it not for the fact that it shocks him straight to his core, their breaths mingling together now.

But then he sees the tears welling in Carla’s eyes. He sees them, and she looks down and sees the gray-yellow-green bruises mottled over his middle—and then she pulls back from him.

Samuel closes his own eyes, exhaling long and deep through his nose. When he opens them again, Carla’s half-turned away from him, curled in on herself. Her arms are folded across her chest, vice-tight, and she’s back to not looking at him, just like in the hospital.

“I… I should probably go,” she murmurs shakily.

Samuel’s a coward. And that just makes him angry.

“Why did you even come in the first place?” 

Carla flinches. Samuel doesn’t allow himself to watch the single tear sliding down her cheek. “I wasn’t going to let you leave the hospital by yourself.”

“No. Don’t do that. Don’t bullshit me, Carla, you know what I meant,” he bites out heatedly. Then he dredges up the question he’d asked her before. “ _Why are you here?_ ”

She finally turns to him; her eyes are still wet, but they’re also hard now, on the defense. “I had to make sure you were okay. I had to see it for myself, alright?”

“Why?” _Admit it,_ is what he doesn’t say. 

“Because—”

“Because what, Carla?”

One of her hands is gripping her arm so tight that he doesn’t doubt she’s leaving bruises of her own. He also doesn’t doubt that she’s currently sharing Rebe’s sentiments—if he wasn’t already hurt, she’d slap him right now.

Instead, she clenches her jaw, searches his eyes, and turns to leave again. “I have to go.”

“I know what you told Rebe,” he calls after her, halting her where she already has her hand on the doorknob. The line of her shoulders is tense, probably because of what he’s saying, but maybe also because of how spiteful he sounds. “I know you said that the whole time you were with Yeray, you were only thinking about me.”

Carla instantly whirls around, expression flashing, body hunched like it gets when she’s angry. Furious. “Oh, yeah? Well, did she also tell you what she said after that?”

She didn’t tell him anything, and she probably never would have. He had to fucking _overhear_ it. But Samuel just stares at Carla, unwilling to give her the satisfaction.

“She said you would do anything for me, that you would go to hell and back for me,” she continues, spitting the words at him. “That I had you in the _palm of my hand_.”

“That’s not true,” Samuel says resolutely, if not quietly.

“Isn’t it?”

“I loved you.” 

“I ruined you!” Carla yells. “That’s what I do! I ruined Christian. I ruined Polo. And I ruined you. I left to try and save you from it, but I was still ruining you this entire time anyway. Look around, Samuel. Look at _yourself._ Can you honestly tell me that none of this was my fault?”

“It’s only your fault,” he begins, watching how she absorbs the words with a poorly hidden pained expression and a steely, straightening spine, “because you pushed me away. Because you _left._ ”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Why?” He asks again. She doesn’t answer. “Carla. Just say it.”

_Admit it._

“Because I loved you, too.”

Rebe’s voice again. _And look what happens to the guys that she’s loved._

“Nothing was going to happen to me,” he tells Carla, firm. 

She lets out a dry, rough laugh. He’s missed her laugh. This isn’t it. “But something did, Samuel. Your leg is broken. You were hit by a car. When Guzmán called, I thought—”

Carla abruptly stops, chewing on her lower lip as if that’ll hide from him how he heard her voice choke, _crack._ Something flickers across her face, something raw and terrified.

Guzmán’s voice now. _When she thought he was dead._

Samuel inches closer as best as he can with a crutch. “Best” is still pretty fucking terrible though, and he wobbles somewhat, wincing too, and draws Carla’s attention. He manages to close the gap, however, if only because Carla does most of the work, hands hovering over him like she isn’t strong enough to touch him again just yet, but she’s still afraid he’s going to fall.

“You need to sit down,” she says, trying and failing to make it sound sharp, like an order. 

Samuel ignores her. Just as quietly, he murmurs, “Tell me.”

His gaze is unflinching from her face, but she refuses to look up at him. Those tear-filled eyes fix themselves no higher than his chin, and her voice is so low, so weak, that he wouldn’t have been able to hear it if he were any further away from her. “Please,” she says. “Don’t.”

“Tell me, Carla,” he repeats. “What did you think?”

For a long moment, she just stands there. Stares at the discoloration on his torso. And then, “I thought my dad tried to kill you.”

Samuel leans back a little, a ridiculous mixture of confusion and dawning realization flooding through him and most likely showing on his face because Carla finally meets his eye again, cheeks wet. She looks so broken.

Just as broken as he’s felt over the past six months.

“You want to know why I pushed you away? Because he told me he’d hurt you if he saw you around me. All I’ve been trying to do is protect you from me, but even when I’m not here, I’m still ruining you.” She doesn’t have to look around them to know what she means. _The bottles, the mess, the anger._ She whispers, “I convinced myself that if it meant you were safe, then I was fine with you hating me. But I never thought…”

“I don’t hate you,” he says, and Carla’s eyes dart to him.

Samuel sighs, everything suddenly catching up with him, his body sagging beneath it all. He turns and drags himself to the chair by the table, collapsing down into it. And then he drags his hands over his face.

“I tried to,” he continues, “but I don’t.”

“You should.”

He shakes his head and looks at her meaningfully. “I _can’t_.”

That’s what this whole internal battle has always been, anyway. The part of him that wants so bad to hate and resent her, and the other part—the part that always wins—that can’t, because he loves her. And doesn’t think that’ll ever change.

“Do you still love me?”

“Samuel…”

Again, he shakes his head. Wearily, now. “Just answer me, please.”

She stands there with her fists clenched at her sides. Probably to hide the shaking, but he notices it anyway. 

“Yes.”

Samuel leans forward on his elbows and ignores how his ribs protest with the pressure as he runs his hands over his face. Whatever fight may have been remaining within him leaves on a deep breath. “I’m tired.”

He doesn’t just mean physically; not only from his injuries. Knows that she knows it too, because she takes a cautious step forward, and then another when he doesn’t flinch away. Her fingers tentatively brush over the shell of his ear, then disappear into his hair.

“I’m tired of it all, Carla. I’m tired of hurting,” he whispers, voicing hitching. “I’m tired of… of being alone.”

“Yeah,” she agrees shakily, stroking his hair. “Me too.”

“But you’re going to leave again.”

Her fingers tighten a little. She doesn’t deny it, but—

“I can come back.”

Samuel looks up at her.

“I want to come back,” she adds quietly.

And then he wraps his arms around her hips, buries his face in her stomach, and sobs. He releases every pent up emotion into the fabric of her sweater, exhaling them out, breathing her in, and she’s crying, too.

He clutches at her like a lifeline.

He’ll be okay with letting her go, though, because even if he doesn’t know where they’re going from here, _she’ll come back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> then they kiss and samuel shirks his alcohol addiction and turns his life around and carla comes back and they date and are in love. fun


	9. the gentleness that comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carla knows her father, and she knows that after what Lu announced tonight, he’s going to be on damage control.
> 
> She just hopes that the damage in question is on his way here, safe and unharmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> basically this is an au of 2.07 where after the charity thing carla texts samuel to meet with the intent of confessing everything to him instead of guzman texting him that he believes him. honestly this stemmed from me wanting to write carla cleaning his wounds, soooo (also i could have had this posted two weeks earlier, but stressful life stuff got in the way)
> 
> rating: mature (again for themes i guess)
> 
> additional tags: more hurt/comfort! specifically more hurt samuel. also some angst
> 
> title taken from a (or a part of? idk i saw it on twitter) richard siken poem that i thought fit carmuel so well:
> 
> the gentleness that comes,  
> not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.

_Where the fuck is he?_

The sharp points of Carla’s stilettos sink into the grass as she paces back and forth, but she hardly notices the burn building in her calves, too preoccupied by the anxiety growing inside of her at an even faster rate. She checks her phone for what feels like the thousandth time. No new messages, and none of the ones she’s sent since she got here have even been read, let alone replied to. Coming to a stop, she curses under her breath and puts her phone on sleep again. Tightly crosses her arms over her chest and clenches her jaw, looking around at the too-quiet forest surrounding her.

There aren’t any signs indicating that she’s anything but alone.

Carla shivers, and not because she’s standing outside in the middle of the night wearing a dress.

She hadn’t bothered to change out of the outfit she’d worn to that sham of a charity benefit when she got home. Her father didn’t say two words to her during the entire car ride, and that didn’t change once they got through their front door. He just stalked off towards his study without so much as even looking at her—and while that made it significantly easier to sneak back out five minutes later, it also left her with a knotted-up feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She knows her father, and she knows that after what Lu announced tonight, he’s going to be on damage control.

She just hopes that the damage in question is on his way here, safe and unharmed.

Biting her lip, Carla unlocks her phone once more. She presses dial, listens to it ring, and agitatedly hangs up before she gets his inbox. Doesn’t think she can handle hearing it again. 

_Fuck, Samuel. Answer your phone!_

Maybe he’s just lost? Maybe she should’ve picked him up instead of having him meet her here? _Maybe he’s lying in a ditch somewhere, bleeding and hurting and—_

No. Carla sucks in a shaky breath, trying her best to expel that thought from her mind. _No_ , he’s probably on his way right now. Most likely, he got caught up somewhere. He’s riding a bike, and he can’t really text and do that at the same time, now can he?

Not too long ago, she used to believe her own bullshit. Now it just tastes like ashes in her mouth; feels like cotton in her ears.

She starts moving again, though instead of anxiously pacing back and forth, she forces herself to keep her steps slow and measured. She does the same with each breath she takes as she goes. One step forward, and she inhales. Another, and she exhales. She keeps doing that, focusing on it enough until she starts to compartmentalize, pushing her nerves aside in favor of looking around as she aimlessly walks the perimeter of the house.

It’s been five months since she was last here. Before that, it had been, what, over five years? But the memories of spending summers and weekends here have stuck with her all this time, and now they hit her full-force—the house is shuttered and somewhat aged with the lack of being lived in, sure, but Carla can’t help but notice that very little about it has changed since she was a young girl. 

Very little, that is, except the marble headstone she finds herself stopping in front of right now. 

She doesn’t need her phone’s flashlight to be able to read what’s engraved on it, but she turns it on, anyway. 

_Marina Nunier Osuna. 2002–2018._

Like every other moment where she thought of those dates, Carla feels something thick and acidic clawing its way up her throat. She instinctively lifts her hand up, fingers pressing into her jugular, swallowing against the burn; the same thing she did when Samuel had walked up to her the last time she stood here after Marina’s mass.

She almost wants to laugh—she accused him of _stalking_ her. If only she knew then just how much more complicated everything would turn out to be, just how much she would grow to care for—no, _love_ —Samuel, and just how much she’d be willing to give up for him. 

It’s come full circle, almost. Things are ending where they all began.

She doesn’t know what’s going to happen after tonight, what this will mean for her family, what this will mean for Polo, what this will mean for her and Samuel or just _her_ , period. All she knows is that she’s tired of lying and pretending; of _secrets_. She can’t keep this up. Especially not anymore, now that Lu’s words have all but sealed Samuel’s fate. 

How did Lu even know about them, anyway? It’s a question Carla’s barely gotten the chance to ask herself due to all the other shit swirling around in her head. She and Lu have drifted far apart over the last year, and while that definitely explains _why_ Lu would spitefully throw Carla under the bus like she had, it does nothing to explain _how_. She’s certain Rebe already knew about them, if only because Carla’s noticed her obvious crush on Samuel and the subsequent, just-as-obvious jealous glares she’s sent in Carla’s direction whenever she thought she wasn’t looking, but it’s not like Rebe and Lu are the best of friends. So the probability of Rebe telling her that, in Lu’s words, Carla’s _fucking_ Samuel is unlikely. 

Maybe the two of them just hadn’t been as inconspicuous as they thought. Carla knows that the deeper she fell in love with Samuel, the more reckless she got; her being here is a testament to that in itself. And it’s not like Samuel’s ever been particularly subtle, either. He’s an over-obvious, persistent idiot who screwed her over with that fucking recording and then pushed her away when she admitted her feelings for him. Yet here she is, putting almost everything in her life on the line to ensure his safety, because despite all that, she still loves him, anyway.

God. The stupid shit she does for love.

She stares at the headstone. At those dates. At the abundance of flowers gathered around, although her eyes linger on the large bouquet of dahlias resting in the center. Those were always Marina’s favorites. 

Carla kneels down a little, brushing the tips of her fingers against the dark, delicate petals.

“I was so confident of everything I thought I knew back then, when I told you not to fuck over your family for some guy you just met. And now look at me,” she says, a single quiet, humorless laugh escaping her. “What is it about those García boys, I wonder.”

There’s no response, obviously. No wind rustling the trees, either; no distant sounds of the city. Not even crickets. It’s the type of too-still quiet where Carla can’t help but feel like someone _is_ listening.

So, she continues, “This isn’t going to make up for anything I’ve done to you, it won’t bring you back, but I know that I need to do it.” She closes her eyes for a brief moment. Exhales a slow breath, then whispers, “For you, for Samuel… and for me.”

She’s still met with silence. So much silence, in fact, that when something suddenly rattles at the front of the property, Carla jumps in surprise.

She stands up quickly, fumbling with her phone as she looks in the direction of the sound. Under normal circumstances, she’d be cautious, careful, calculated—what most people know her as best. She’d think of how this is a wealthy, uninhabited home in the middle of the forest, and therefore ripe pickings; how, in horror movies, it’s always the dumb girl who walks off toward suspicious noises that gets killed first. Ironically, she’s usually blonde.

But these aren’t normal circumstances. These are strenuous ones, and with that sound all of Carla’s anxiety washes back over her like a tidal wave. All she can think about is _Samuel_. Her feet begin moving of their own accord.

Carla cuts around the side of the house to the main gate, shining her phone’s flashlight in front of her. She squints—and feels her shoulders relax minutely as she spots a familiar blur of gray and red: the Las Encinas blazer Samuel had been wearing earlier tonight.

“Fuck, you almost gave me a heart att—” 

It’s hard to tell what cuts her sentence off first: the scream she nearly lets out as she shifts her phone up and gets a good look at Samuel’s bloody face, or the hand he clamps over her mouth to stifle it. 

He quickly backs up into one of the columns bracketing the gate, pulling her with him until she’s tucked so tightly against his front that she can barely breathe. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and presses her impossibly closer; her phone is wedged uncomfortably between both of their stomachs, but Carla doesn’t dare move as she hears rapidly approaching footsteps crunching through the leaves.

Several flashlight beams shine through the bars of the gates, searching. How many people did her dad send? With Christian, it was just a car. Did he really mean to _kill_ Samuel?

It takes everything in her not to sob. This is all her fault. She should have tried to smooth things over with her dad as soon as Lu stormed off from behind that podium, not texted Samuel about needing to talk to him. She should have followed him into his study when they got home and insisted that Lu was lying; that she’s mad at Carla and just spitefully wants to get back at her. But no, that probably wouldn’t have worked—her father isn’t stupid. 

Perhaps she could have just begged for Samuel’s life, then. She didn’t, though, and all she can see is his blood-streaked face as she squeezes her eyes shut. Tears silently slide down her cheeks. Samuel hasn’t removed his hand yet; he has to feel them. 

“He’s gone,” a gruff voice says after a few agonizingly tense seconds. “Let’s go.”

Neither she or Samuel make a sound as they listen to them walk away. They stay right where they are, unmoving, until they can no longer hear their footsteps, and for several more seconds after that just to be safe. Eventually, Samuel loosens his hold on her so that he can check to see if they really are in the clear, and Carla stumbles back. Her legs are shaking. Her entire _body_ is shaking.

Heaving a relieved sigh, Samuel turns back to her. But before he can say anything Carla grabs his bicep, her other hand hovering over his injured cheek as she frantically searches his gaze.

“Samuel, are you okay? What hap—?”

“Not here,” he says in a rushed whisper, shaking his head and gently clasping her wrist. 

Carla presses her lips together, fighting against the urge to keep questioning him, then nods. He lets her go, his shoulders sagging a little. She watches as his eyes fall closed and he winces in pain; she slides her hand down his arm until their fingers are entwined, if only to anchor herself. “Come on.”

He follows her without any argument, and Carla mentally prays she’d been correct about this place mostly remaining unchanged as she leads him through the courtyard and to the front door. The spare key is easy enough to find; she remembers watching Marina fish it out from beneath a vase on more than one occasion. The code to the alarm system that starts blaring as soon as they slip inside is a bit harder to remember, however, and she has to dig deep within her memories for it. She gets it wrong on the first try. When she does the same on the second, she avoids Samuel’s worried gaze where he’s exhaustedly leaning on the wall beside her. If she fails the third time, the cops will be alerted, and they’ll have no choice but to flee. She doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen then, or if those men that had been chasing Samuel are still scouting the forest around them.

Luckily, she punches her third guess in, and the alarm immediately quiets down. She exhales unsteadily, tension easing out of her.

“How’d you know all of that?”

“I grew up here,” she answers, eyes cutting to him and chest clenching at the sight before her. She straightens, placing her hand on his neck and asking again, “Samuel, what _happened?_ ”

“They were chasing me in a car. Ran me off the road. They followed me from the hotel, I think.” He tries for a light smile. It just comes out weak. “You couldn’t have picked to meet somewhere less secluded?”

She frowns. “It’s not funny. They were…” _Trying to kill you._

Carla quiets, blinking back tears. That caustic burn rises up her throat once more.

“Hey,” Samuel murmurs, cupping her face in one hand. He sweeps his thumb over her cheekbone. “I’m sorry.”

Why is he apologizing? This is _her_ fault. Her doing. 

She leans away from him a bit. “You need to get cleaned up. There should be a first aid kit around here somewhere.”

Samuel bobs his head, and Carla avoids his eyes as she turns and stalks in the direction of the guest bathroom. That’s where the first aid kit was last, at least, when Guzmán fell while they were playing outside and cracked his knee open. Although, they’d still been in primary school back then.

She doesn’t flip on any of the lights as she goes, figuring it’ll be safer to continue using her phone. She finds the kit beneath the sink. It’s a little dusty, but it’s fully stocked, so she grabs it and leaves, finding Samuel sitting on one of the covered couches in the front room. He’s using a dish towel to gingerly dab at the blood on his face, expression screwed up in pain; she doesn’t know how he found that, although she _is_ sure it’s far from sanitary, so she sits down next to him and gently pulls his hand back to inspect the damage. 

A cut on his forehead, one on his right eyebrow, and another on his cheek. His nose has also clearly been bleeding, but it’s stopped now. Carla swallows thickly.

“Here, let me,” she says quietly, taking the towel from him and setting it down. She feels his eyes on her as she opens the kit and takes out an antiseptic pad, splashing it with the bottle of rubbing alcohol also stored inside, but he remains quiet and unmoving—that is, until she lifts it to his forehead and begins carefully disinfecting the cut there, making him flinch and suck in a sharp breath through his teeth. 

Carla murmurs an apology but doesn’t stop, mostly moving on autopilot as she cleans his injuries. Her mind is racing. Having him meet her here was a mistake. Samuel had been right: if she picked someplace different—no, if she didn’t pick any place at _all_ , this wouldn’t have happened. 

And now, things are infinitely worse. The men her dad hired hadn’t been totally successful, Samuel had managed to get here in the end, but what if what she’d been planning on telling him tonight doesn’t actually help? He’s going to want to go to the cops if she tells him the truth, something she’d been expecting and even willing to do the moment she texted him after the charity benefit, but they didn’t listen to him when he had an actual recording of Carla; who’s to say they’d listen to her in person, instead? The police are in her father’s pocket. If she tries to confess and they brush her aside as opposed to arresting him, he’s going to find out, and he’s going to be more determined than ever to silence Samuel for good.

All of this had been a mistake, but relying on the cops to do their fucking jobs had been her most crucial one. She hadn’t even considered what she would do if her dad remained free. She’d only been thinking about how she can’t carry this weight anymore. About protecting Samuel. He’s in even more danger now, and knowing him, he’ll be too stubborn to see it. 

Fingers suddenly wrap around her wrist again, halting her movement. It’s only then that she realizes she’d been shaking. 

“Carla,” Samuel says, tender. “Carla, look at me.”

She can’t bring herself to, because suddenly, she can’t handle seeing him like this. And if that’s the case, how is she going to handle it when he inevitably ends up dead?

He repeats it again, still in that soft voice. Carla stares at some random point on his chest, trying her best not to focus on the spots of red on the front of his shirt, but her vision is blurry with tears, and the color, ironically, bleeds. He hasn’t released her wrist, and he curls a finger from his other hand under her chin; she remains unyielding, though. _She can’t look at him._

Then before she knows it, Samuel is pulling her to him—slower now, less hastily than he had outside—and wrapping his arms around her back. It takes her a moment to ease into it, but only a moment, because then she’s burying her nose in his neck and breathing him in and squeezing him tight and _sobbing_.

It’s stupid. _He’s_ the one who was just running for his life; _he’s_ the one who’s wounded; _he’s_ the one who should be comforted and taken care of, not her. Not Carla, who can’t stop trembling, even when Samuel starts murmuring hushed reassurances in her ear and brushes his thumb back and forth along the nape of her neck. 

And although she will always find solace in his touch, right now it’s just not enough to ease her worries. She doesn’t think anything will, not with the threat on his life still very much real, not with her father around.

Samuel can say the words _I’m okay_ to her as much as he wants, but that doesn’t mean it’ll always be true. It _especially_ won’t be true if he stays in the city.

“You need to leave. You need to leave Madrid,” she mutters into his shoulder, fingers anxiously curling into the fabric of his blazer with the thought. She might never see him again if he does leave, but that’s something she can come to terms with if it means him being alive and well. She’ll do anything to protect him, even say goodbye.

“What are you talking about?”

Carla ignores him, frantically rambling on. “I-I’ll pay for your ticket, I’ll find a way to do it without anybody tracing it. I can give you some money, too. As much as you need to get away from here. You could—you could go to France, or Italy. Morocco, maybe, I don’t know, just—”

“Woah, Carla, hey. Slow down,” he interrupts her, leaning back so that he can see her. She feels his hands on either side of her neck, thumbs on the hinge of her jaw so she has no choice but to look at him—which she does after a second, resolutely bringing her eyes to his without stopping anywhere else, and only then does he keep talking. “I’m not going anywhere. I _can’t_ go anywhere. My mom’s here, my job’s here. I have school. I have y—”

He cuts himself off, something akin to doubt flickering in his eyes, but Carla knows what he hadn’t allowed himself to say. 

_You_. _I have_ _you._

She wants to assure him that, despite what he did to her, despite how he let her leave his apartment the last time she was there, he does. He does have her. She wants to, but as long as that’s true, he isn’t safe. 

“Please,” she whispers, _begs_ , eyes welling with fresh tears. “You have to go.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

She doesn’t extract herself from the cradle of his palms, but she does let her gaze fall again, fixing itself on one of the buttons on his shirt. When she speaks again, her voice is so quiet even she can barely hear it. 

“Samuel, I’m scared.” 

He doesn’t reply, although she imagines he clenches his jaw like he usually does when he’s unsure of what to say. 

So she continues, “I’m scared for you. I’m scared my father isn’t going to stop; that he’s going to succeed. That you’re going to get killed.”

“Wait,” he says, and her eyes lift up only to find him staring at her in confusion, brows drawn together. “What do you mean? What about your father?”

Desperation leads to agitation. Carla scowls a little, her patience gone—what is he so damn stubborn for?

“I _mean,_ he’s going to fucking kill you! He might not have been successful tonight, but he doesn’t take failure lightly.”

“This wasn’t your father, Carla.”

She scowls even deeper. “Yes, it was. And it’s my fault, and I can’t protect you from him, not anymore, so—”

“No, listen to me,” Samuel says, firmly enough that she stops talking and does exactly that. “This wasn’t him. This wasn’t your fault, either. It’s Rebe’s.”

Carla searches his eyes, her own features etched with confusion now. “What?”

He exhales a short breath and finally drops his hands from her face, leaning back a little more. Guiltily avoids her gaze. “Yeah. Or her mother’s, I don’t know.”

That doesn’t make any sense. He and Rebe are friends. Rebe has _feelings_ for him—feelings that he’s blind to, sure, and while Carla’s aware of what type of business the other girl’s mother is in, it’s not like she’d have her try to murder Samuel out of jealousy, would she?

“Why would they want to hurt you?”

“They don’t. It’s complicated, I…” Another sigh, raggedly this time, and he scrubs a hand through his hair, still avoiding looking at her. “I’ve been working for her mom for the past few months. Not outright dealing, just delivering packages on my bike, but these guys didn’t like that she was on their turf. One of Omar’s coworkers knows them, and he said I should watch my back, so I said something to Rebe. She mentioned it to her mom to protect me, I guess, but instead Sandra put Omar’s coworker in the hospital—”

“So they decided to retaliate against you,” Carla surmises hollowly. She’d been _wrong?_

Samuel nods, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Now everything’s a fucking mess.”

She furrows her brows, not out of judgment—God knows she of all people has no right to look down on someone because of their involvement in criminal activity—but puzzlement. “Why’d you even start working for her?”

Even if he wasn’t dealing, it’s still not like him. He hates drugs. He hates his mom’s _nicotine_ addiction, for crying out loud. He may have tried to swoop down to Carla’s level when they started this thing, but he’s never been all that good at it; no matter how hard he tries, he’s too honest. Soft-hearted. 

It’s one of the things she loves most about him, admittedly.

“I needed money for Nano’s bail,” he answers, somewhat bitter.

Because Nano’s gone. _Disappeared,_ Samuel’s been insisting, but Carla knows better: he skipped town. She doesn’t blame him, can’t blame him, even though part of her is a little pissed that he washed all of Samuel’s hard work getting him out of jail down the drain. He’s unnecessarily in danger with drug dealers now, and he doesn’t even have a brother to show for it. 

Honestly, Carla’s tried to wrap her head around how much effort Samuel’s put into clearing Nano’s name more than once. After all, it’s not like Nano himself is winning the brother of the year award anytime soon; he and Marina were fooling around while she and Samuel were still together, he got her _pregnant,_ and based on what little Samuel has told Carla about Nano, this isn’t entirely off-brand for him, if only slightly more fucked up than usual. She obviously gets doing anything for the people you love—she’s been there, she’s there right now, but she’s also begun to learn that the people you love don’t always deserve it. 

But then again, it doesn’t matter if Nano deserves it. If Carla hadn’t helped Polo lie, Nano never would’ve been arrested for Marina’s death and, therefore, there wouldn’t have been any bail to pay. So Samuel had been wrong, in the end. This is still Carla’s fault, no matter how indirectly or far down the line it may be. 

“Hold on,” Samuel says, tearing her out of her thoughts. “Why did you think your dad was trying to kill me?”

Her stomach clenches nervously. Right. In all the chaos, she almost forgot why they were supposed to be meeting here in the first place. She knows she has to tell him; that there’s no going back now. And nothing has really changed. Even though it wasn’t her dad tonight, it very well could be tomorrow. 

Still, even if she knows that, it doesn’t make it any easier to do. She hadn’t actually planned anything when she texted him. She’d been too worried. 

Anxiously, Carla plays with her hands in her lap, staring at them. 

“Because you’ve been snooping around, asking questions. You took that recording of me.” She swallows, finding the courage somewhere within her to meet Samuel’s eye. “Because you found out who really killed Marina, didn’t you?”

There’s nothing but silence. Carla waits for his tightening jaw, the telltale sign of his speechlessness; and then she waits as he searches her face, probably to decipher if she’s trying to manipulate him. But Carla’s done playing their game, has been for a long time now, and she drops all her masks, all her defenses, and _waits._

When he finally says something, his voice is so low and even that it hardly sounds like a question. “Was it Polo?”

She isn’t sure whether this is a final test or a last chance for her to cop out or both, because he already knows the answer to that. 

“Yes,” she whispers, and this time, Samuel doesn’t reach out to brush away the tear that falls down her cheek with it.

His breath quickens, the only obvious indicator that he’s anything but the calmness he’s currently portraying. Then his back straightens, bringing him even further away from her, and for some reason, those few inches of added space stings her. She doesn’t know why, though; she may not have known what confessing to him would mean for _them,_ but she certainly, on some level, expected him to hate her. This sudden, cold reaction shouldn’t be surprising at all. 

“Nano was right,” Samuel starts, still in that quiet tone. “He was right, wasn’t he? Polo murdered her to get that watch back. To get you back. And you and your father helped him cover it up.”

Carla nods, an almost imperceptible thing. She can barely move. She can barely speak too, though she manages, anyway. “But it wasn’t Polo who caused Christian’s accident. That was my dad.”

It’s Samuel’s turn to fill in the gaps now. “Because Christian knew what happened, and he was going to tell.”

Another brief moment of silence washes over them, and Carla stares back down at her fingers. They feel a little numb.

“I didn’t mean for him to get hurt,” she admits quietly.

Samuel doesn’t say anything. She can’t bring herself to look up and gauge his reaction. She keeps talking.

“When he was hit, he was on his way to the police station. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do, so I texted my dad. But I never thought he would—” She cuts herself off, biting her bottom lip in an attempt to hide how it’s trembling. “It’s my fault he’s never going to walk again. Tonight, after what Lu said, I was sure my dad was going to do the same thing to you, or worse. And I couldn’t… I can’t let that happen.”

“Is that why you had me meet you here?”

She nods again. “I thought if I told you everything, we could go to the cops together. They won’t stop him, though. Nothing can.” Sniffling, she shakily lifts a hand to wipe her tears. “This secret is eating me alive, Samuel. I can’t fucking take it anymore. I can’t take knowing that you’re in danger of him every second. But I don’t know what to do.”

The feel of his fingers tracing the curve of her cheek and tucking her hair behind her ear has her breath catching in her lungs. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye in surprise, not expecting such a gentle touch from him.

He should be angry. She’s just confirmed everything he’s been grilling her about since they sat across from each other at the bar in Barceló, a bottle of tequila shared between them. He should be furious, so why is he looking at her gently, too?

Samuel lightly skims his fingers along the shell of her ear, over the hinge of her jaw, then down the line of it. When he gets to her chin, he frames it between his thumb and pointer finger, tilting it up a little.

And then he slowly leans forward, capturing her lips with his own.

It’s a tender thing, despite the salty flavor of tears and the faint, metallic tang of blood. Impossibly gentle, cutting right through the violence.

She supposes that, in a nutshell, that describes whatever this thing she has with Samuel perfectly. _Contradictory._

This kiss is certainly contradicting what she figured his reaction was going to be, but she can’t bring herself to pull away, and when Samuel does a few seconds later, she already finds herself missing the feel of his mouth on hers. Thankfully, he doesn’t go far; just an inch or so, his fingers still on her face. She keeps her eyes closed, basking in his touch, his proximity. 

She murmurs, “What are you doing?”

“The last time you confessed something to me, I should’ve kissed you,” he replies, his breath soft on her skin. “Instead, I let you walk away.”

Carla’s eyes slowly flutter open. She stares at him. Since it happened, neither of them have acknowledged what was said in his apartment. 

“This isn’t exactly the same as me telling you I want to be with you,” she says quietly. “This is me telling you that I’m an accomplice to murder. Your brother was put in jail because of me. And now he’s gone. You should hate me.”

“I already told you. I don’t hate you.”

She smiles sadly. “Then you’re an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Samuel agrees, smiling too. He brushes the edge of her lips with his thumb. “An idiot who loves you.”

Words leave her as her eyes widen, looking deep into his own. Maybe he’s finished playing their game as well, though, because she can’t find anything in them indicating that he’s trying to trick her.

“I should’ve told you that, too. I was being stupid, blind. I just wanted to get to the truth,” Samuel continues.

She doesn’t reply; even now, she can still feel the sting of his rejection. How badly she wanted him to chase her into the hallway at the same time as she wanted to slap him again.

“And now that I have it,” he says, “I know that neither of us were ever going to win playing each other like that. Not alone.”

Carla blinks, trying to figure out what he’s getting at. “Samuel, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we need to do this together. You and I. We go to the police.”

Before he’s even finished talking, she’s already shaking her head. “No, didn’t you hear me? My father—”

“I don’t care about your father,” he interrupts her. 

“I love you, too,” Carla whispers, almost desperately, “which is why I can’t do this. He’ll kill you. If another person gets killed because of me… if _you_ get killed because of me, Samuel, I can’t…”

“The police _will_ listen to you, Carla. You’re not just some girl. You’re a marchioness, and your word means a lot,” he insists, once again cupping her face in his hands. “We don’t even have to go to the station itself. We could contact the inspector and have her meet us somewhere private. But we have to do this.”

She licks her lips, swallows thickly. Thinks of the grave outside.

“I know. But—”

“Carla, I promise. Nothing is going to happen to me.”

“You don’t know that,” she mutters brokenly.

“I do. Because I’m not stupid enough to let anything else get between us anymore, okay? I’m done with it. I just want to be with you. That future you were talking about? Where we go on dates in public, where we eat my ‘disgusting’ macaroni at my place?” Despite herself, she laughs quietly, and he grins, leaning their foreheads together. “I want that, too.”

She sobers a little, but doesn’t pull back from him. “I’m terrified,” she admits again. 

It feels even scarier now, though. Because now she knows he loves her, and if she were to lose that? She doesn’t know how she would ever carry on.

Carla’s never experienced this type of love before. All-consuming, all-encompassing. It’s terrifying, too. And it’s made her life a million times more difficult than it already was. 

She wouldn’t let go of it for the world.

“I know,” Samuel replies. “But, like I said: together. We’ll figure it out together.”

He kisses her lips once more, then her forehead, and Carla finds herself starting to believe it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was kinda similar to the last one-shot, but whatever lol
> 
> i’ve been wanting to start another multichapter fic lately because i miss writing an ongoing story, so that might happen sometime soon! if it does, i’ll write it concurrently with this fic :) hope you are all having a nice day!


	10. only fools rush in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One thing he’s sure of is that Carla’s probably freaking out a little, too. He doesn’t want to put any more pressure on her than there already is, so he can wait a few days, or even longer if that’s what she needs.
> 
> He can play it cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so im back! well to this fic that is, most of you know that i’ve been working on a whole carmuel multichapter fic for the past month, but if you don’t then that’s where i was lol. but im glad to be working on one shots again, and this one clearly got away from me :) this one is set in canon but after las encinas, i imagine they’re all around 27-28 here
> 
> rating: mature
> 
> warnings: heavy sexual themes

They’re not that couple that believes in silly notions like _women are the ones who cook_ and _men are the ones who take out the trash._ Sure, before they got together Carla had never done either of those things in her entire life thanks to growing up with a maid, but Samuel thinks she’s acclimated well to the whole fending-for-yourself thing. 

At least, on a practical level. If what they went through at Las Encinas is anything to go by (and it definitely is), Carla is nothing but a survivor. 

Anyway, the notion still stands that they don’t think chores necessarily come with a required gender to perform. Samuel only finds himself taking the trash out right now because he’s home from work early, Carla’s still out with Rebe, Lu, Cayetana, and Nadia, and it needs to be done before either of them forget. 

He walks around the house with a giant garbage bag, searching for spare trash if there just so happens to be any lying about (there isn’t—Carla’s a neat freak), and dumping the smaller bins in their office and bedroom into it. It’s a standard-enough, if not everyone’s favorite, habit. He’s done this hundreds of times before. So when he gets to their bathroom, he reaches down for the little basket containing used Kleenex, makeup wipes, and other random toiletry-related stuff without giving it much of a second thought.

But then he sees something poking out of the top of the heap, and Samuel pauses. It’s something skinny, white, and plastic; sort of looks like one of those disposable thermometers. A slight frown forms between his eyebrows. Carla hadn’t mentioned anything about feeling sick. 

He doesn’t know what possesses him to reach down and pull out the thing. Natural curiosity? No, natural _stupidity,_ maybe. 

In the future, Carla will tell him it’s definitely the latter. Samuel will have no choice but to agree, honestly, although right now he can’t bring himself to do anything else but gape at the plastic stick pinched between his fingers.

It’s decidedly, without a doubt, _not_ a thermometer.

It’s a pregnancy test.

A _positive_ pregnancy test. 

Samuel has watched television. He’s taken the mandatory health classes in high school. He’s had the awkward talk with his mom, for crying out loud, so that’s what those two lines staring back at him mean, right? Positive. With child. _Pregnant._

Carla’s pregnant—with his kid. Obviously. 

His thoughts continue in this choppy, nonsensical pattern as his feet drag him out of the bathroom and all the way to the living room of their own accord, because he’s certainly not paying any attention to where he’s going. It’s a wonder he doesn’t knock into any errant furniture, but as he plops down on the couch, he does blink. Again, not by will, but out of necessity—his body is simply overriding his brain, because it’s altogether stopped working.

_Carla’s pregnant. Carla’s pregnant. Carla’s pregnant._

He sits there and stares at the stick. When did she take this? How did he not notice it sitting in the trash before? How long has it been; a week, a day? 

She hasn’t been acting any differently than normal, but then again, it’s Carla. Yeah, Samuel can read her better than anybody else (and he definitely prides himself on that, on thoroughly knowing someone as mysterious as _Carla_ in-and-out), but she can still hide what she’s feeling better than most people. Now he just feels like shit for not noticing the signs of anything being off sooner. 

He tries to recall what time might’ve done it, thinking back on the last three weeks. There was the club’s bathroom, Lu and _Rebe’s_ bathroom, Samuel’s office at work… and those are just times where they weren’t even home. Honestly, given their admittedly active sex life and bad habit of foregoing condoms, it’s impossible to pinpoint. And Carla’s on birth control, but it’s only ninety-nine percent effective. Of course, leave it to them to be the exception.

Samuel would laugh at the irony if he wasn’t feeling just a tad panicked. That only worsens when he finally asks himself the biggest question there is: _why hasn’t Carla said anything?_

The most obvious answer, of course, is that she doesn’t know how to tell him. But ever since Las Encinas, they’ve gotten good about talking to each other about even the hardest of things; have even made it a point because of all of the secrets they used to keep from one another. This isn’t just any secret, though. And while Carla is good at concealing her anxiety, he’s aware that doesn’t mean she’s exempt from having any at all.

The second most obvious answer is that she doesn’t want the baby and is planning on aborting it as soon as she possibly can without telling him. Hell, maybe that’s where she and the girls are at now—he hadn’t really asked about their impromptu hangout. If that’s the case, Samuel won’t be mad, it’s obviously her body and therefore her decision, but he sort of hates that she might’ve felt like she couldn’t come to him about this. He would have liked to be there with her, for her. That’s what he’s always been here for, even when decisions and circumstances were keeping them apart. She knows that.

In any case, he’s getting ahead of himself, and then he remembers a core detail about the upcoming days: Carla’s set to have a huge business meeting with potential investors in Napa. Her flight leaves _tomorrow._ She’s got a lot on her plate already, and maybe she’s just trying to stress about one thing at a time. Maybe she’s going to tell him she’s pregnant when she gets back. Yeah. That’s got to be it.

One thing he’s sure of is that Carla’s probably freaking out a little, too. He doesn’t want to put any more pressure on her than there already is, so he can wait a few days, or even longer if that’s what she needs. He can play it cool.

Suddenly, Samuel hears the telltale sound of keys in the doorknob and his gaze darts over to the window. The sun’s starting to set—has he really been sitting here staring at this pregnancy test for two hours?

His eyes widen as they tick between the stick in his hands and the door. _Shit._ His whole “not pressuring Carla into telling him” plan is going to go directly down the drain if she walks in and catches him holding the test in his hand, so he shoots up to his feet and frantically makes aborted movements in different directions, searching for somewhere to toss it. He’s just about to throw it out the window in a truly dramatic act of desperation and spare an apology for whoever happens to be standing on the street below later, but then common sense thankfully catches up to him and he practically dives into the kitchen at the same time as Carla finally gets the front door open.

“Samuel?” He hears her call out, voice slightly muffled through the half-wall separating them but getting louder as she comes closer. He looks around for a moment before his eyes land on the long drawer hiding their waste bin from view. _Duh._ “Are you home?”

He pulls the drawer open and drops the test inside, thankful that he hadn’t emptied this beforehand because it gives him an excuse to tie up the bag and get rid of the evidence for good. Instead of sighing in relief like he wants to, he replies, “Yeah, I’m just—about to take the trash out!”

_That was a close one._

Carla’s face comes into view on the other side of the breakfast counter, and he’s aware that he’s sort of just awkwardly bent over the trash. She regards him amusedly for a second, then comes around into the kitchen proper as he straightens. 

“Hi,” she greets with a sweet smile, and because she’s in flats today, angles her head up to press a mostly innocent, semi-lingering kiss on his lips. He’s not so distracted that he doesn’t return it, although he has to very deliberately keep from staring at her still-flat stomach when she pulls back; still, he doesn’t even notice the loaded plastic bag she sets on the countertop. “Have you eaten? I picked up dinner from that Mediterranean place downtown.”

Samuel shakes his head. Now that he thinks about it, he’s starving. “Just let me wash up.”

“Okay, I’m going to get changed,” she says, pecking him again before disappearing down the hall toward their room. 

It sort of amazes him how easily she can act like there’s nothing out of the ordinary. He steps out with the trash (and gives himself a few minutes outside to collect all his racing thoughts, because _really_ ) and when he comes back, Carla’s already curled up on the couch in a thin tank top and pair of silk pajama pants, looking for something to watch while they eat. The food is in front of her now, on the coffee table, next to two stacked sets of plates and silverware. She’s clearly waiting for him before she starts eating, so Samuel makes quick work of washing his hands and joining her.

They end up watching _Animal Planet_ reruns and talking about their day. Samuel’s was pretty uneventful—up until the part where he found out his girlfriend is pregnant, of course, but he leaves that out, skimming over the boring details before asking Carla what she and the girls did. He thinks he does a pretty good job at not sounding too eager for details, because Carla doesn’t look at him weirdly.

Instead, she shrugs dismissively. It drives him crazy, because he reads absolutely nothing from that gesture. “We had drinks,” she says, and before Samuel can freak out about the dangers of _alcohol_ and _unborn children,_ “Well, _they_ had drinks—it didn’t seem like a great idea to me, being hungover _and_ jet-lagged tomorrow.”

He wants to say, _yeah, of course, that’s the reason. Definitely,_ but that really would warrant her giving him an odd look, so.

“You’re probably right,” he replies with a soft, amused snort. “You’d be so cranky, there’s no way those Californian wine-o’s would want to invest in your company.”

Carla pushes at the side of his head, making him laugh. She narrows her eyes, but he can detect the playfulness tugging around the edges. “I’m never cranky.”

“Right, and next time I wake you up earlier than ten on your day off, I’ll remember to record your cute little glare.”

She just flips him off with the hand not holding her fork, snickers, and goes back to her food.

Once they’re done with dinner, they end up cuddling on the couch in comfortable silence. Samuel is leaning against the arm with his legs stretched out on the cushions, and Carla’s sitting between them, her back nestled into his chest. She’s got her face turned toward the television, watching a baby whale swim with its mother or whatever, he doesn’t know, because truthfully, he’s spent the last several minutes just observing her instead of paying attention to anything else. 

They say that pregnant women get this... glow to them. Samuel thinks it’s kind of a cop-out thing to say; unhelpful at all, really. Carla’s always glowing to him, and she certainly doesn’t need a fetus’ help in that field. Regardless, it’s too hard to tell right now. The only thing illuminating the living room is the blue light from the ocean on the T.V. and the table lamp behind his head—and then he remembers that it’s probably too _early_ to tell if Carla’s got that pregnant glow on top of her normal one, anyway. 

She must feel him staring at her, because she suddenly turns her head even further to glance up at him. “What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“About…?”

“You,” he says, and it isn’t the whole truth, but it also definitely isn’t a lie, either. A small, pleased smile curves on her lips, before she reaches over to shut the television off and twists around in Samuel’s lap. 

“How coincidental, because I was thinking about you too,” she hums teasingly, draping her arms over his shoulders and slanting her lips over his own. 

Samuel lets himself get lost in the kiss, relishing in the soft vibrations of Carla’s resulting moan once he tightens his hands on her waist and the even softer feel of her bare skin beneath his fingertips. The way she kisses him has always made his head spin from day one—how she occasionally slips in a light nip with her teeth, how she runs her hands everywhere she can reach on his body, how she likes to tug on his hair—and he’s never been all that good at resisting her, no matter how many times he’s actually done it in the past. Whenever he did, it was just barely. It took pretty much all of his willpower to think with his head and not with his dick.

He digs within himself for that age-old willpower now; he definitely hasn’t had any need for it in a very long time. Obviously, he very much wants to have sex with Carla, but there’s a _baby_ inside of her. He knows, realistically, that that’s not going to stop him for nine whole months—he isn’t a saint—and it’s not that he finds it a turn-off or will in the future when her belly’s gotten bigger, that’s far from the case, it’s only… 

Well. He just found out there’s a _baby inside of her._

It’s stupid that he’s worried he’ll hurt it or something, because he knows that that isn’t a thing. There’s nothing logical about that whatsoever, but Samuel’s brain is choosing when it does and doesn’t want to use logic today.

He spares a silent prayer that this child doesn’t inherit that from him. In fact, he hopes it receives most of its mother’s better qualities, period. The kid is going to run the world. 

Feeling proud about that while Carla has got her tongue in his mouth just has him feeling _weird,_ so finally, he manages to grasp onto that willpower he’d been searching for and begins to pull his head away. 

Or he tries to, but then Carla sucks on his bottom lip and makes him melt a little. Like he said, resisting her is difficult.

“Is this really the best time?” He attempts between kisses, gasping near the end as she bares down on his growing erection. He can feel the heat of her center even through all the layers of clothing. “You have an early flight tomorrow.”

Carla doesn’t part from him to answer, although she does nod. “Yes, which means we’re not going to be able to do this for four days.”

If they could actually manage to go five minutes without getting handsy with each other, then that pregnancy test wouldn’t have been necessary, but he doesn’t say that. For one, it would just sound like a complaint on multiple levels. 

He indulges her—and himself—for a few more seconds. His hands have gravitated to her ass on their own, but still, “You should really get some rest.”

“I can sleep on the plane.” It’s a sound argument, but because he’s a stubborn idiot, Samuel’s not going to cave. As soon as Carla’s hand cups him through his sweats, he reaches down to gently but firmly grab her wrists, and ultimately leans back to look her in the eye. She’s wearing a mildly annoyed expression, although it’s mostly just impatient. 

“Seriously, I don’t want you to be tired for all those business people you need to impress.”

Carla sucks her teeth lightly and rolls her eyes. “Please, as if I couldn’t do that _in_ my sleep. I told you, I’m never cranky.” A seductive smirk slowly forms on her kiss-swollen lips as she frees her hands from his light grasp and starts to lay back on the couch’s cushions. “But I _am_ horny, so c’mon.”

Samuel just stares at her, his mouth dry, dick throbbing in his pants. He’s trying really hard to focus, and Carla’s smirk turns a bit smug before she takes advantage of his stupor and tugs him in by the front of his shirt. He falls forward, just barely managing to brace himself above her so that he doesn’t crush her. She leans up so that her mouth is brushing his ear.

“Don’t you wanna take care of that?” She purrs, and Samuel shivers. Her voice lowers even further. “Don’t you wanna fuck me?”

 _God,_ she has no idea how much he does. But—

With a resolute sigh, Samuel pulls back and gives her a gentle half-smile, half-wince. He squeezes her hands apologetically. “Not tonight.”

Confusion and irritation flicker across Carla’s features. Then he just sees a bit of hurt and even _insecurity_ mixed in there as well, and that just has him feeling like the world’s biggest asshole. But they’re gone in an instant as Carla huffs a frustrated breath and rights herself up, folding her arms over her chest. He resists teasing her for pouting; he knows it won’t end well for him.

“I hate when you get all concerned for my well-being,” she grumbles, but he can tell that she isn’t serious.

He chuckles quietly and settles beside her, kissing the top of her head. “No, you don’t. You love it.”

“Mm. Under circumstances where you’re not cockblocking the both of us, normally.” 

Samuel just laughs again, moving down to innocently peck her cheekbone. He feels it shift beneath his lips as she smiles, and even though he can’t rightly see it from this angle, he knows it’s dangerous.

“I guess this just means you owe me twice the amount of orgasms when I get back then,” she remarks lightly, pushing him aside as she gets up and walks away.

 _Saunters,_ actually. What she’s doing is definitely a saunter, solidified when she shoots him a sly look from over her shoulder before disappearing into their bedroom.

Samuel gulps. He spends several minutes controlling his breathing and willing his libido to calm the hell down before finally following after Carla, finding her standing in front of an open suitcase on their bed and contemplating what she’s going to wear over the next few days. Samuel plops down across the top of the mattress, lying on his side so that he’s facing her and propping his head up in the palm of his hand. 

This is another routine of theirs—Carla holding up a dress or shirt-and-skirt combo and asking him _what do you think about this?_ then typically proceeding to answer the question for him. Samuel doesn’t mind, because in the off-chances that she does wait for him to reply first, he always says the same thing. _You look great in everything._

It’s a good system they’ve got going, really.

His resolve is only tested briefly when Carla suggestively holds up a matching bra and thong just to tease him, but she relents with a little laugh when he chucks one of the throw pillows behind him at her. 

Carla finishes packing (she’s always been really quick and efficient at it, which in turn has always bewildered him due to how many things she actually brings with her everywhere) and they go about their night routine together before slipping into bed. It’s way too early to go to sleep, especially by Madrid’s standards, but Carla has to be at the airport by three in the morning. So maybe she found his reasoning for not wanting to have sex logical, ironically.

Logic is still nowhere to be found in his own head as he starts thinking about just how dangerous planes are, and just how long the flight to California from Madrid actually is.

“Will you call me when you board?”

“Samuel, you’re going to be asleep still.” He doubts that. He’s pretty sure his newfound anxiety is going to keep him up until the moment he knows she’s back on solid ground.

“Fine, but will you call me when you land?” She nods against his chest. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” she says, then looks at him with a tiny frown. “What’s up with you?”

“I just hate flying,” he replies. Again, it’s the truth. The first time he’d flown was when he and Guzmán went to visit Lu and Nadia in New York, back when they were still living there and attending Columbia. It’s a story Guzmán wasted no time in telling Carla about the moment she reentered his life, and one Carla herself has experienced firsthand many times since. 

She smiles and softly kisses his neck in reassurance. “I know. But I’ll be fine. Statistically, planes are—”

“Safer than cars, I know. Why does everyone like to say that? It just makes me worried about car crashes, too.” Can he convince Carla to solely travel by the metro system for the next nine months? He highly doubts it. She’s never been as fussy as rich girl stereotypes would lead one to believe, but even she has her limits. 

Carla laughs. Pointedly, she says, “You worry about everything.”

“Gee, thanks,” he scoffs lightly.

“It’s a good thing you’re cute when you’re worried, no?” She leans over and shuts off his lamp, engulfing the room in darkness. Samuel blinks as his eyes adjust, but doesn’t startle when he feels Carla’s lips quickly press against his own, smiling. “Now go to bed.”

Despite his anxiety he does actually fall asleep, but only until Carla’s alarm goes off a few hours later and she slides out from under the covers. She goes into the bathroom to get ready, and Samuel doesn’t even laugh when she emerges half an hour later in full hair and makeup, or when she sits on the edge of the mattress and slips on a pair of heels. He’d long ago gotten used to his girlfriend being that woman who looks glamorous even thirty-thousand feet in the air. 

Samuel leans over and kisses her shoulder blade through her blouse. He kind of wants to kiss her stomach too, but he can’t reach it from this angle, and besides—that would just give him up. 

So, “You’re going to blow them away,” he murmurs. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’ll be back by Friday,” she replies, capturing his lips one final time before she leaves.

Needless to say, the next twelve hours are the absolute longest of his life. He attempts to distract himself with casework, but that only succeeds until he finds himself on the internet googling everything there is to know about becoming a first-time father. That just devolves into research about how the mother’s body changes over the months, which turns into learning about all the machinations of childbirth. On top of the regular pain, it’s possible that the baby can fracture the mother’s bones on the way out, and _still_ most of them choose _not_ to have an epidural? Women amaze him. They also terrify him.

He reads about postpartum depression, and descends into such a whirlwind of worries due to Carla already having suffered from _regular_ depression in and shortly after school, that he hardly notices anything else going on around him. He apparently eats at some point, because near ten o’clock he blinks and finds a box of leftovers from last night open next to his laptop. 

Carla calls him right around the moment he learns about the mortality rate—eight-hundred and thirty women die every day because of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, _christ—_ which is probably a good thing, all things considered. What isn’t is that she actually FaceTimes him instead of a regular call, so when Samuel answers it, he’s fully confronted with how crazed he looks in the small preview window on his phone’s screen. 

His hair is sticking up in every which way, his eyes are wide, red, and weighed down by deep lines; and he’s got the beginnings of a beard. There are a few stains on his shirt. He looks like a homeless mad scientist, to say the least.

Carla, of course, looks radiant, like she teleported directly to California instead of getting there by plane. 

Her smile flickers as she takes in his appearance. “Jesus, have you slept at all since I left?”

“Uh…”

Now her expression turns stern. She was the one who had talked about him being concerned for her well-being last night, but Carla can be a secret mother hen. 

He guesses that title is pretty accurate now. 

“Samuel, it’s almost four p.m. in Madrid,” she needlessly points out. 

He winces. “I know, I know, I was just—” He scrambles for an excuse. “I couldn’t sleep until I knew you were safe.”

 _The both of you,_ he thinks.

Carla softens a bit, but only marginally. “Well, here, now you know,” she says in exasperation. “I’m just on my way to the hotel.”

“I can’t go to sleep _now,_ ” he groans, getting up from where he’d been sitting and falling onto the unmade bed with a grunt and a bounce. “I miss you so much already, I have to take all the time I can get until you come back home.”

She rolls her eyes like he’s being ridiculous, but she’s smiling as she remarks, “So clingy.”

He sighs dramatically. “I suppose I’ll just have to make plans with my other girlfriend to cure my loneliness.”

“Fuck you,” Carla says with a laugh. “You’re annoying. I’m hanging up now.”

“I’ll tell Carla number two that you said hello,” he grins, his own laughter spluttering out of him as he’s met with a beep signifying the call’s end. 

They talk later that night again, once Samuel is well-rested, showered, and clean-shaven. They also have phone sex. Like he said, he’s not a saint, and he figures it’s less weird for him this way. 

He doesn’t spend nearly as much time fretting over the whole pregnancy thing as he thought he would over the next few days. It’s slightly easier to handle when he goes back to work on Monday, and regularly talking to Carla when she’s not touring wineries and being an all-around badass marchioness-C.E.O. helps too. Her big meeting comes up, and of course, she nails it. She still has to stick around for another day though, so they make plans to properly celebrate when she returns. He thinks he sees a sort of twinkle in her eye before they hang up, like she’s implying that they’ll have more than one thing to celebrate. Samuel wonders if he’d been right; that she really was waiting for this deal to be closed before she told him about the baby.

That just kickstarts his impatience. Suddenly, he can’t hold this in anymore—the need to talk to somebody is overwhelming, clawing up his throat and threatening to spill out on every sentence that he speaks. 

As if sensing this, Omar comes over later that day.

See, Samuel tries to keep quiet for Carla’s sake, he really does. He and Omar talk bullshit, drink beers, play video games… but it’s in the middle of the latter where Omar suddenly pauses the game, ignores Samuel’s indignant _hey, you can’t do that right when I’m about to kick your ass,_ and says, “Alright, out with it.”

“Out with what?” Samuel asks, overtly casual, and tries not to wince immediately afterwards. He hates that he’s terrible at playing dumb when he’s actually trying—not that he’s great at it when he isn’t. 

Omar just gives him an unimpressed look. Samuel avoids it by picking up his beer, taking a swig, and then playing with the curling edges of the label. Or he at least _attempts_ to avoid it, but Omar’s always been persistent, and Samuel’s already standing at the cliff’s edge.

“It’s just—Carla—well, we—I—” The words get all jumbled in his throat, and he exhales in an effort to recollect himself. Fuck it. “Carla’s pregnant.”

He slowly looks at Omar in his peripheral, only to find his best friend’s eyebrows raised and mouth slackened, right before his expression explodes into the beginnings of pure joy.

“ _But_ you can’t tell anybody,” Samuel says hurriedly as soon as he sees that Omar’s about to talk. “Not even Carla.”

Now his eyebrows abruptly hunker down in confusion. “I’m sorry, does your girlfriend not know she’s having your kid? Do you have some sort of telepathic connection with her uterus that she doesn’t know about?”

Samuel rolls his eyes. “ _No,_ it’s just that I found out on accident, and I don’t want her to know that I know yet. Just in case she doesn’t want me to know, you know? But I think she’s going to tell me when she comes home tomorrow. Maybe. I don’t know.”

He’s very much aware just how stupid that entire string of sentences sounds, even without the added help of Omar’s bemused expression. 

“Okay,” the other man eventually says. “How’d you ‘accidentally’ find out?”

“Found the pregnancy test.”

Omar nods thoughtfully. “And you’re sure it was positive?”

“Of course I’m sure. I’m not an idiot.”

His best friend starts to grumble something along the lines of _well,_ but Samuel fixes him with a half-hearted glare. Omar chuckles, smiles brightly, and knocks their knees together. “Hey, congratulations, man. I’m happy for you. The both of you. This is great news!”

Samuel’s smile is genuine, if not hesitant. “Yeah, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been kind of going crazy. I mean—what if she _isn’t_ going to tell me? At first, I thought she was maybe going to get rid of it, but then I thought she wasn’t, but what if I was wrong? What if she’s not sure what she wants to do entirely and that’s why she hasn’t said anything?” 

The words come out faster and faster, leaving Samuel a bit out of breath by the time he finishes. He’s also leaning forward on his elbows, his hands anxiously anchored in his hair; he hadn’t even realized he moved.

“Woah, okay. Calm down.” He hears Omar set his controller onto the table, then senses him shift so that he’s facing Samuel. He takes him by the wrists and forces him to sit up again, then places his hands on Samuel’s shoulders so that they’re eye-to-eye. “Do you even know what _you_ want?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s her decision,” Samuel instantly replies.

“Well, yeah, in the end, obviously,” Omar says. “But you’re still entitled to your own opinion.”

Honestly, he’s been so caught up in thinking about Carla, her reasons for not telling him, and her safety, that he hasn’t even stopped to consider what his own opinion was.

And now he sort of wants to hit Omar for bringing it up, because that just unleashes a whole different slew of questions and worries that he’s not even remotely prepared to deal with. He simply _doesn’t know._

“I’d love to start a family with her,” Samuel eventually and slowly begins. “I mean, fuck, I want to spend the rest of my life with her, of course I want her to be the mother of my children, too. But we’ve never really discussed having kids before. Marriage… I think the both of us just have an understanding that it’s going to happen, we’re in no rush, but kids? I don’t know. I think this rushes things.”

“It’s completely normal to be freaked out,” Omar tells him. “And for the record, I don’t think Carla would go behind your back and abort your child without telling you, even if it’s obviously her right to do so. But she wouldn’t do that to you. She’d talk to you first.”

Samuel stares at some random point on his friend’s shirt. “Yeah, I guess I know that. I told you, I’ve just been freaking out.”

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t obsessively worry,” Omar replies, tone amused.

“Carla said something along the same lines to me the other day,” he huffs. “The suspense is just killing me.”

“Look, you said she’s going to tell you tomorrow, right?”

He nods, but says, “I could be wrong, though.”

“If she doesn’t, then be patient, give her some more time, but I’d definitely bring it up before you stress yourself into an early grave. It’d look bad on you if you made Carla a single mom before she’s even had the baby.”

Samuel narrows his eyes at him. “Very funny.” 

Still, he does try to follow Omar’s advice. _Be patient._ He picks Carla up from the airport the following afternoon, kisses her deeply and leads her back to his car, listening intently as she tells him about Napa, even though he’s heard most of it through their calls over the week. Carla’s quieter during the ride home though, eyes focused out the window, lost in thought. He sneaks glances at her as he drives. He wonders if she’s thinking about the baby. _Be patient_.

Despite what she said about him owing her double the orgasms when she gets back, Carla makes a beeline for their room and lets her jet lag pull her into a deep sleep. _Be patient_ , Samuel tells himself as he carefully lies down beside her. _Be patient,_ he thinks as he props his head in his hand and smoothes his other over the flat planes of her abdomen through her shirt.

He falls asleep himself like that, waking up a couple hours later to find Carla already staring at him, her lips curling in a smirk that’s both loving and teasing. She pointedly glances down at his hand, still in the same place, and his legs, that have since become entangled with her own.

“Carla number two must suck, you’re still so clingy,” she murmurs, giggling lightly as Samuel wraps his arms around her waist and rolls onto his back so that she’s now lying on top of him. 

“Mm, nothing compares to the real thing,” he hums, letting his eyes fall shut again. Carla kisses his lips, then runs her finger along his bottom one. He basks in her proximity for a moment, having missed her so much this week, before his stomach grumbles and he cracks an eye open. “Dinner? I’ll cook, we still need to celebrate.”

“Is it really a celebration if _you’re_ cooking?”

Her raised eyebrow is effectively diminished by Samuel pinching her side, and he gets up from the bed as she laughingly squirms off of him. “I lied. Carla number two is way better, she actually appreciates my culinary skills.”

“Hey, I never said I don’t appreciate them. I can love when you cook for me and still think it tastes inedible,” she replies with a cute grin. “It’s called being a supportive girlfriend.”

“Shut up,” Samuel snickers fondly, shaking his head and bending back down to steal one last kiss from her before going into the kitchen.

After a few minutes, Carla walks in while he’s setting a cutting board on the counter. He’s already got the steaks he bought yesterday seasoned and set aside, so Carla joins him in chopping the stuff for their salads. They talk aimlessly, conversationally, and Samuel’s laughing at something she just said when he glances at her out of the corner of his eye and his smile abruptly falls from his face.

It’s like the world is moving in half-speed as he watches Carla lift a glass full of wine to her lips. When did she even get that? How did he not notice it? Better yet, _what the hell is she thinking?_

This is precisely where his _be patient_ mantra is completely thrown out the window.

“Wh—Samuel, what’s wrong with you?!” She splutters indignantly, face creased in a confused and angry frown, as he reaches over and tugs the glass free from her hand. The dark red liquid misses her clothes entirely, instead splashing all over the floor. 

His own anger arises. “ _Me?_ What’s wrong with you? You shouldn’t be drinking!”

Her confused expression just deepens at that. “And why shouldn’t I be drinking?”

“Because you’re pregnant?” He shoots back, incredulous, as he gestures widely and obviously.

The two of them stand there for several seconds, regarding each other with their own bewildered looks. Finally, Carla says, “What are you talking about? I’m not pregnant.”

He rolls his eyes. Okay, she knows she’s caught, she doesn’t have to hide it from him anymore. “Yes, you are.”

“Samuel. No, I’m not,” she replies firmly. Her tone has him second-guessing himself for a minute, something that Carla must be able to see, because she lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Fuck, is that why you’ve been acting so weird lately?”

“I haven’t been acting weird,” he defends weakly.

Carla just levels him with a pointed look. “Baby, you’re not subtle at all.” 

A brief silence falls over them again. Samuel looks her over, processing everything. “So you’re really not pregnant?”

“ _No,_ ” she reiterates, sounding a little exasperated now.

Samuel stares at some unspecified point for a moment before exhaling heavily and turning his body, leaning back against the countertop’s edge. He blankly regards the wooden cabinets across from him.

 _Carla’s_ not _pregnant._

“Did you… want me to be?” She hesitantly asks. 

“No!” Samuel responds way too quickly, making himself wince. “Or, I mean, yes, I-I don’t know. Yes.”

He senses Carla side-step the wine puddle neither of them have bothered to clean up yet, and in the corner of his eye, he notices her hoistering herself up on the opposite counter. She’s way too far away from him now and he hates it, but he can’t bring himself to get closer. It’s quiet for a moment.

Samuel angles his head to the side, although he looks at the floor instead of at her. “We’ve never talked about it before,” he says. “Having kids.”

“I know,” she says on a tiny sigh. “I take it this means you want them, then?”

He shrugs. “I mean, I never _didn’t_ want them, I just… never thought about it, really. But yeah, I guess I do,” he replies. He finally looks up at her. “You don’t?”

Carla chews on her bottom lip. “I—I don’t know,” she answers.

The apprehension he can detect in her voice snaps him out of whatever weird funk he’d been stuck in. He can tell exactly what she’s scared about, and he walks over, standing between her knees. Gently, he takes her hand. 

“Carla, even if you don’t, you know that doesn’t change anything about us. It’s not a deal breaker,” he assures her in a low, soft voice, before letting out a dry chuckle. “Hell, I don’t even know if I’d be a good dad.”

Her eyes immediately swivel to meet his, brows notched in a disbelieving frown. “You’re joking, right?”

“I’ve never known what it’s like to have a dad,” he tells her. “The closest thing I had to that was Nano, and we both know how he can be.”

“Samuel, you’ve been taking care of him and your mother for so long. You don’t need an example, you _are_ one. But you still had a loving family anyway, and mine is just so unbelievably fucked up,” she replies with a teary, humorless scoff that makes his heart clench in his chest. Her gaze falls once more. “It’s me who should be worrying about whether or not I’d make a good parent. It’s not that I don’t want kids, I just—I don’t know.”

Unthinkingly, Samuel places his hands on either side of her neck, thumbs fixed on the hinge of her jaw so that she looks at him again. Only then does he say what he says next.

“You do have a loving family already. You have me, and Lu... Nadia, Guzmán, Omar, and everyone else. And you would do anything for any of us. Fuck, I’ve already watched you give so much of yourself to protect those you love, Carla.”

“That’s just it,” she mutters. “The things I’ve done? How am I any better than my parents? A child deserves someone better than that. Than me.”

That just fills him with righteous anger. “Don’t you ever say that. And don’t you ever compare yourself to them, either,” he says seriously, then softens. “You’re the best person I know.”

A smile fights its way onto Carla’s lips. It’s barely there, but it leaves Samuel feeling triumphant all the same. 

“You’re just biased,” she says sadly.

“But it’s still the truth,” Samuel argues. “You know you’re nothing like your parents. And if you think whatever you did in the past doesn’t make you fit to be a mom, then by that logic, I’m not fit to be a dad, either. You forget that you weren’t alone in what happened to Polo.”

He can tell that she still wants to argue that, even though they both know that he’s right. Even after all these years, Carla still struggles with her conscience, with her own insecurity. And Samuel has been there to comfort her every time; he always will be. Right now, he picks up her hand and softly drags his lips over her knuckles before placing a kiss on the inside of her palm. 

Carla’s smile is wider now, full of love. Samuel grins back at her, then leans down so that he’s face-level with her stomach. 

“You’re all going to have the best mom ever, if and when we decide to add to our little family,” he says, eliciting a giggle out of the woman in front of him.

“Samuel, what are you doing?”

“I’m talking to all of our future potential children, duh,” he remarks. 

She hums. “And by _that_ logic, shouldn’t you also be talking to your dick?”

He heaves a small sigh and fixes Carla with a look. She just laughs again, mimicking sealing her mouth closed before leaning back on her hands to give him more room.

“As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted—which, let’s hope you don’t inherit her really terrible sense of humor, because honestly—” He dodges the half-hearted swat she aims at his head with a chuckle of his own. “Anyway, your mom is so smart. I mean, she’s got to be the smartest person I’ve ever met. She’s also the bravest, too. Stronger than anyone in the whole country. Maybe even the world. I’ll need to fact check that, but I’m pretty sure it’s undeniable.”

He gives Carla a cheeky smile, earning himself an eye roll, but it’s belied by the way her expression is actually beaming. 

“You’ll never have to doubt how much she loves and cares for you, because it’s going to be clear in everything she says and does, or just how she looks at you. Believe me, I know. I’m so lucky to call her mine. And you’re going to be so lucky to call her your mom someday, too.” Carla’s hand is tracing the hairs curling over the shell of his ear, and he knows that she’s staring at him with that love right now. You don’t even have to see or hear it; you can just _feel_ it. He moves in so that his last sentence is brushed against her stomach in a soft, whispered kiss. A tiny smile curves on his lips. “And, oh, did I mention that she’s super hot?”

Carla huffs an amused snort, and he grins widely as he lets himself get pulled up by her. She’s shaking her head at him, but then she’s kissing him soundly, and when she parts, she brushes their noses together. “I love you.”

“Me too. So much.” He gives her another brief kiss. “I meant everything. If we ever do have kids, it’s going to be the best day of my life. But until that moment, each day I get to spend with someone as amazing as you is the best one.”

She smiles, a bit shy despite saying, “You’re so cheesy.”

He tilts his head side-to-side. “Clingy, cheesy, can’t cook…”

“A real keeper,” she replies, more sincere than teasing, as she gazes at him. Then she purses her lips in thought. “What made you even think I was pregnant in the first place?”

Oh, yeah. He forgot that’s how they got to this sudden morose topic. Moreover, he forgot to consider how if that test wasn’t Carla’s, then whose was it? 

“I found a positive pregnancy test when I was emptying out the trash.”

Carla places her hands in his abdomen and lets her head fall forward onto his shoulder, her own shaking with silent laughter. “Samuel, that was _Nadia’s._ ”

“ _What?_ ”

He feels her nod. “That’s why the girls came over. Nadia missed her period, but she was too scared to take the test by herself, so I told them to come here. Then we took her out to brunch to celebrate.” She slides her hands up so that they’re loosely locked behind his neck and leans back again, now audibly laughing as she gets a good look at his face. “God, why didn’t you just ask me?”

“I thought you were… I don’t know, trying to wrap your head around everything! I didn’t want you to feel forced into telling me before you were ready,” he replies, defensive. Carla is still snickering quietly, and he can only stand so long before he joins her, tilting his head toward the ceiling. “Fucking hell, Omar’s going to make so much fun of me.”

“Oh, so you told _Omar?_ ” 

“I needed to talk to someone before I went insane,” Samuel says. He frowns. “Wait, why didn’t he know it’s Nadia’s?”

“Because Lu, Rebe, Caye, and I are the only ones who know. And now you, I guess.” Sternly, she adds, “Don’t tell her I told you. She’s just going to panic about you mentioning it to Guzmán before she’s ready.”

“Jesus. Well, congratulations to them.” Samuel shakes his head. “There’s so much going on right now. We’re supposed to be celebrating your big investment.”

“Instead, you knocked my wine all over the tile. You do realize that if I were pregnant, the literal fetus would be way too underdeveloped to be affected by one glass of alcohol.” Carla’s eyes light up with realization and another laugh bubbles out of her. “That’s why you didn’t want to have sex with me the other day, isn’t it? You thought you were going to hurt the nonexistent baby.”

He scoffs. “Do I need a reason to not have sex with you?”

Carla gives him a look that all but says _honey, please._ Yeah. Even he knows how unbelievable that sounded.

Still, he averts his eyes and grumbles under his breath. Then he stiffens ever-so-slightly as he catches glimpses of Carla’s seductive little smirk while she slowly leans in and flicks her tongue against his earlobe. 

“Now that we’ve established the fact that you’re a dumbass, will you fuck me now?”

He shivers despite the _dumbass_ comment. He can admit that he deserved that, and even if he didn’t, he’d be too distracted by Carla mouthing at the sensitive spot on his neck to bother fighting her. 

Well, okay, he at least tries to put up the front of a protest. For dignity’s sake—which isn’t much, since he’s already a tad breathless. “What about dinner?”

She lifts her head up, their mouths mere millimeters apart. “This is supposed to be my celebration, right? That technically means we should do what I want.” He absently nods in agreement, more than a little hypnotized by her. “And what I want is for you to take me to bed.”

Samuel swallows, somehow getting his wits about him. “Well, I do owe you all those orgasms.”

“Exactly.” Carla lightly shoves him back, that devilish smirk still on her mouth, and she looks him over appreciatively for a single moment before she scoots forward, about to hop off the counter. He catches the teasing glint in her eye just a tad too late. “Don’t worry about my safety or anything, I’m not going to fall to my death from all the way up here.”

Her laughter rings loudly throughout the apartment as Samuel chases her into the bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can’t believe i’ve never actually plugged my tumblr before but feel free to follow and talk to me! i’m @ esterexpsito


	11. cherry flavoured conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes Samuel way less time to figure out what’s going on than it had taken her, and that surely must be a first. She’d laugh, if she weren’t struggling for air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise i’ll get to prompt fills again soon, but here’s another original one-shot lmao
> 
> rating: teen
> 
> additional tags: moderate angst, hurt/comfort (im sorry... i just love it), and panic attacks. this is basically a missing scene type thing set in s3 after samuel has already turned in rebe’s mom and it’ll probably have a prompt-based sequel
> 
> title taken from cherry flavoured by the neighbourhood. i think it’s a very s3 carla song (especially after she starts using :( poor baby) and if you are also mentally ill like me and her, you will listen and cry gkdkskdkd

It takes her a moment to figure out what’s happening.

In all honesty, it shouldn’t; the warning signs are ones that she has seen in Polo a countless number of times in the past—the shaky hands, the sudden onset of sweat, the wide eyes, the heavy breathing. Maybe she doesn’t recognize it at first because, for once, she’s not witnessing it happen before her very own eyes, but experiencing it firsthand, and it feels so much worse than it looks.

She’s having a panic attack. 

Carla isn’t sure what set it off, whether it was the oblivious face of the boy—her _boyfriend—_ smiling down at her, asking her about houses or dinner or whatever; or the _other_ boy, whose oblivious, smiling face is one she doesn’t mind, but is now reserved for a girl taller and darker-haired than she; or this fucking school, or just everything in general. All she knows is, Yeray is talking to her and suddenly, her mouth goes dry and her chest goes cold and tight, and somehow everything seems both overtly loud and cotton-dulled in her ears at once. She glances around, checking to see if the walls actually are closing in on her or if it’s just her imagination, when her eyes swivel back to Yeray as she vaguely registers him calling her name. 

Still, she doesn’t know what he says next, his lips moving inaudibly. She blinks, swallows, feels like she’s going to choke on her own tongue—and stutters out a bullshit excuse that she doesn’t really think twice about before fleeing to the closest girls’ bathroom. 

Yeray doesn’t follow her, which is a good thing, because she immediately stumbles into a stall and starts dry heaving into the toilet bowl. She pays no attention to whether there’s anyone else here with her—she _can’t,_ too busy hyperventilating, too busy trying to calm her racing heart and steady her trembling legs. The latter, at least, is managed by falling to her knees onto the floor, heedless of the dull pain the impact makes. She skipped breakfast, so nothing comes out of her mouth except saliva, and yet she can’t stop.

For the first time, she wonders if all the instances where she sat and helped Polo through his anxiety attacks ever actually helped, because she thinks if someone touched her right now, she’d probably snap. And if they also told her to _breathe, just breathe,_ she’d probably try to spit back, _I’m trying._ _It’s not as easy to do as it fucking sounds._

But what does it matter, anyway. No one’s here to do either of those things. She has no one left. At least, no one who she actually wants around. 

She imagines what she must look like right now. Pathetic, probably. Pale-faced, red-eyed, with fucking spit smeared across her chin as she coughs and gasps and shakes. Sitting on the cold tile, unable to even bring herself to care about how unsanitary it probably is. Part of her almost wishes someone would walk in, anyone, because that would _force_ her to stand up, collect herself, get a grip on her shitty reality and put on all her usual masks. But classes were about to start when she was still in the hallway, so the likelihood of that happening is slim, and the bathroom remains quiet besides the sound of her desperate panting.

That is, until a voice shortly calls out.

“Carla?”

It’s a voice she’d recognize anywhere. A voice that has said her name in all types of manners—on a raspy groan, an angry yell, a tender whisper; and, like now, a worried question. A voice that, in spite of everything, in spite of how hard she tries to avoid or fight back against it, never fails to light up her entire being.

And yet, she still thinks, _please, anybody but him._

He’s effectively got her cornered; she has nowhere else to run to or hide. Not that her legs would probably even permit her to run, let alone walk, but she still tries to stifle herself with cold, numb fingers pressed to her mouth. 

Of course, trying to go dead-silent doesn’t work. She hears him come closer, anyway. Then suddenly, the door to the stall she hadn’t actually locked is being gently pushed open and he’s standing there, arm outstretched, hand still splayed against the metal, concerned brown eyes swiveling down to look at her. 

It takes Samuel way less time to figure out what’s going on than it had taken her, and that surely must be a first. She’d laugh, if she weren’t struggling for air. 

He drops to his knees and instinctually reaches out for her. Carla whimpers and begins to pull back, curling her own knees tightly against her chest and wrapping her arms around them, but he stops himself first, instead letting his hands hover around her. She attempts to tell him to leave, but all she actually manages to do is uselessly open and close her mouth, so she tries to shake her head instead. At what, she isn’t quite sure. It doesn’t make much of a difference anyway, because it’s probably barely noticeable with how bad she’s shaking; blending right in.

Samuel licks his lips and ducks his head so that she meets his eye. She doesn’t. “Carla, look at me,” he says, firm but still gentle. “You need to look at me.”

She pries her eyes back wide open, frantically fixing them on him. He’s looking at her the same way he’d looked at her when he said he loved her. She’s not sure whether that helps or not.

“Just focus on me, okay?” 

Carla manages a tiny, jerky nod, then does what he said. Her heart is still racing and her lungs are still uncooperative, but the room is spinning a little less than it was before. 

“Good. Now, just do what I do, alright? Copy me.” Then she watches as he inhales deeply, holds it for three seconds, then slowly lets it back out. She tries to follow along, but her own breath comes out stuttery, and she can’t contain it for longer than a second at most. Still, Samuel gives her a soft, encouraging smile. “You’re doing great. Try again, come on.”

So she does. She keeps staring straight into his eyes, shakily sucks in some air, mentally counts the beats, and exhales. Repeats it once more. Then another time, and another, until she’s lost count, until her chest is rising and falling in perfect sync with Samuel’s. 

He breathes out for a final time, eyes crinkling around the edges a bit as he regards her, seemingly deducing that she’s okay. Much to her surprise, she _feels_ okay. Well, not okay—exhausted and drained, actually—but it’s definitely an improvement from a few minutes ago; she can talk now.

“This is the girls’ bathroom,” she murmurs into the tops of her kneecaps. It comes out neither pointed or disapproving because of how quiet and raw she sounds. 

Samuel just chuckles like he’s _charmed_ by her and simply says, “Yeah, it is.”

She has to stop herself from smiling at that. Stubborn idiot.

“Better now?” He asks her after a beat.

Carla gives him another nod. Voice still small, she asks, “How did you know how to do that?”

“I’ve been in your position once or twice,” he replies. Then his smile falters a bit, and he abruptly drops his gaze. She watches him hesitate and scratch the back of his head unsuredly. “Uh, I know you don’t—did you want me to leave now, or…?”

The smart thing to do would be to tell him yes. The _strong_ thing to do would be to tell him yes. 

But right now, all she feels is tired, beat down, and weak. And she doesn’t want to be alone, so she does something the complete opposite of smart. 

“Actually,” she whispers quietly—and a tad nervously too, unable to really meet his gaze, afraid that he’s going to say no, “can you stay with me? Just for a few minutes. Please.”

The last word is practically air. In her peripheral, Samuel’s entire demeanor physically relaxes with it. 

“Of course I will,” he says, and after wordlessly asking for her approval, shifts around to sit beside her. She makes as much room for him as she can with what little space they have, which isn’t a lot, and still he leaves a few inches between them as he rests his back against the stall wall. 

They sit in silence for a moment. It’s somehow both tense and comfortable; there are a million elephants crammed into this stall with them, but things with Samuel have always felt so inexplicably natural. She knows it shouldn’t be, but it’s a comfort to know that that hasn’t changed over the past few weeks. 

Because the last time they talked, she took his heart into her hands and completely crushed it. Like a precious diamond pulverized to dust, still pretty priceless to her, but now liable to slip through her fingers. She can still see his face beneath the dim lighting of the club, can still feel the tears that were trying to clog her throat, can still taste the words on her tongue.

_In five years, I won’t even remember your name._

She said that to him— _did_ that to him—and he’s still right here with her. She can’t bring herself to be as pissed off about that as she desperately needs to.

“Samuel,” she starts, “why did you follow me in here?”

There’s no question about how he even knew she was in here. His eyes are always on her, despite the fact that they’re both in relationships. She doesn’t know how he does it, standing to watch her with Yeray, because she certainly can’t handle seeing Rebeka kiss and flirt and touch Samuel, even though Carla’s the one who basically pushed him into her arms. 

He rolls his head where it’s leaning on the wall and just looks at her. “You know why,” he says meaningfully.

She stares back for a second. Then, “Yeah,” she sighs, lowering her gaze to stare at a loose thread on the front of his blazer. 

And because she might as well keep following the _stupid_ trend now that she’s started it, she rests her temple on his shoulder. 

She’s simply too tired to keep up with the fight she’s been battling, at least for the time being.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks. Carla knows he means the anxiety attack, and not about _them._ She’s thankful for that; that for once, he’s not pushing.

Regardless, if she tells him the truth, if she tells him _I can’t,_ then he probably will start digging for real, so she settles on a much smaller one instead. 

“No.” Samuel doesn’t say anything, and if he nods, she can’t see it. She doesn’t want to go back to the silence, though. As comfortable as it was, his voice is even better. She’s not only being stupid now, but greedy too. “Tell me a story.”

He snorts softly. “A story? Like what?”

She can feel him looking down at the top of her head, but she doesn’t move, just quietly replies, “Anything.”

“Okay. Well,” he makes a thoughtful noise, “Have I ever told you about the time a tree almost fell on me?”

“Definitely not. There’s no way I would’ve forgotten that.” Never mind how she can’t forget anything he’s ever said to her, but. 

“It’s how I got my scar,” he says, and she knows that he lifts his hand up to gesture at the thin line dissecting his right eyebrow. “It was Christmas time, I was around eleven or twelve. We’d never had an actual tree before, just a small and cheap plastic thing that had honestly seen better days, and Nano was real insistent that we get one. But obviously, we couldn’t afford to go buy one from an empty car lot or anything.

“I was fine with the fake tree, but Nano is… well, Nano. We borrowed his friend’s truck and drove for _hours._ By the time we got to a secluded-enough forest, it was practically dark out, but it was too late to turn back around by that point. So we got our flashlights and walked in, found ourselves a perfectly sized tree. Nano had never used a chainsaw before. We had no idea where it was gonna fall, I was standing in the wrong place, and…”

He lets her fill in the blanks, and Carla slightly turns her head and snickers into his bicep at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. It shakes beneath her nose as he laughs with her. 

“I probably would have been crushed if I didn’t jump out the way in time. One of the branches just scraped me, although it probably could’ve taken my eye out if I had been any less lucky,” he remarks. “God, and then it took us another couple of hours just to lug the thing back to the car, because it was fucking heavy _and_ we couldn’t really remember where we parked.”

The sound of their laughter echoes around the empty bathroom. Carla’s cheeks ache with how wide she’s smiling.

After they’ve started to collect themselves, she asks, “Is that a recurring thing, then? Stuff collapsing on top of you?”

A tree, a school; a rich girl and her fucked up love, her fucked up life. 

Unaware of her darker thoughts, Samuel lets out another chuckle. “Maybe I just have a target on the back of my head.”

It’s said lightly, but she closes her eyes. He has no idea just how true that is. This is starting to backfire on her quickly, so she swallows down the bitter taste that forms on her tongue and feels her lips bend into a teasing smirk.

“Or just a really gigantic one.”

“If I knew I was going to get bullied when I walked in here…” He doesn’t finish that sentence, but she can hear the grin in his voice. 

A few beats pass before Samuel gently nudges her with his elbow. “Your turn.”

She frowns. “What?”

“It’s your turn to tell me a story now,” he says. “C’mon, fair’s fair.”

“I never agreed to this,” she argues, then gives him a little exaggerated sigh. “But fine.”

She thinks it over for a minute. What could she possibly tell Samuel? Nothing from before everything went to shit would probably go over well, especially since most of her time back then was spent with a boy that has turned both of their lives upside down. It’s not like she has absurd-and-yet-still-charming stories about her family either, and besides, family’s the last thing she wants to talk about, anyway. 

Her options are sorely limited; actually, she’s just left with one. In all honesty, bringing her up is probably the textbook definition of a bad idea, but it _is_ a good memory. Some of Carla’s best ones were made with her, in fact.

“I used to spend a lot of time at Marina’s house, growing up. I practically lived there,” she starts, waiting for Samuel to stiffen, but he doesn’t. Carla trains her eyes on a tiny doodle on the sole of his shoe. “One summer, she went on this whole environmental, hippie activist kick. I mean, eight years-old, hounding litterers and side-eyeing me whenever I ate a cheeseburger. She used to go through these phases. That one was kind of annoying, but… we got a treehouse out of it.

“Her dad had it built for her. I guess to appease her, I don’t know, but we spent so much time in that thing. Like, every waking moment. And Guzmán would get so pissed off because we would never let him in.” She smiles to herself at the memory. “He got so angry once that his face turned a really deep color. Marina called him a grape, said that maybe my mom could make him into a wine.”

Samuel scoffs a laugh, and Carla beams with him. “Although we did have mercy on him one year. It was Christmas time, too. I guess we were feeling extra merry or whatever,” she says amusedly, sobering up a second later. “My parents were out of town on some business meeting, it was nothing new. But I think Marina felt bad about that, how I wasn’t spending the holidays with my real family. I guess she could relate to that. Being adopted and everything.

“She had set up a tiny tree inside of the house—fake, of course, she still wouldn’t have allowed a real one to be cut down because of her. There were a whole bunch of little presents under it; framed pictures of us, other homemade stuff, but… there was also this.” She reaches up and touches her fingertips to the ring hanging from her neck. “She got one for me and for herself. _Best friends.”_

Carla mutters the words quietly and bitterly, because not even a full year later, they were barely even speaking at all. By that point, Carla had Lu. And Marina had… well, she doesn’t really know, because like she told Samuel the night of the red party, _I wasn’t a best friend to her._

She had found the ring again by chance, sitting at the bottom of her jewelry case. It’s the last remaining thing of their friendship. Even the treehouse is gone now, having been demolished years ago. 

She’s drawn out of her thoughts by Samuel slipping his hand into hers and squeezing in comfort, making her realize that she’d been shaking again. The image of their entwined fingers is fuzzy with unshed tears that she hadn’t noticed were even there, and she lifts her head and looks up at him in surprise. 

He’s smiling tenderly at her; pink, full lips curved slightly upwards without a hint of teeth, eyes dark and vibrant, terrifying and soothing, intense and calm.

Carla thinks, _I love you, I love you, I love you._

There’s a miniature black hole between their faces, slowly sucking them towards the epicenter until Carla is closing her eyes and leaning her forehead against his. The soft exhale he lets out through his nose tickles against her skin, featherlight. She tips her chin up and parts her lips.

“We shouldn’t do this,” she whispers. 

“Why?” He asks just as quietly. “I want to.”

She can’t answer him that. But she wants to, too.

Samuel lifts his hand and drags the nail of his index finger along her cheekbone, sweeping her hair aside until he’s tucking it behind her ear. She shivers with it. He absorbs the tremble in his palm as he cups her cheek.

She doesn’t understand how something can feel so painful, and yet still make her want it so bad. 

“You have a girlfriend,” Carla tries now, but it’s a weak thing, especially because she doesn’t say _I have a boyfriend_ first, like a normal person would. 

“This wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done to her,” he murmurs, equal parts blithe and factual and remorseful, a confusing cocktail to her ears, but Carla still doesn’t pull away and neither does he. 

She wants to ask him what he means by that. She wants to kiss him. She wants to whisper into his mouth that she loves him. Most of all, she doesn’t want to leave this bathroom stall for anything. 

But that’s out of her control, of course, just like everything else is nowadays. Samuel’s phone beeps, and with that single sound she’s snapped back into reality. He knows it before she even pulls away, because as she flutters her eyes back open, she sees his own closed, jaw flexing in disappointment. 

For some reason, telling him that she’s sorry just seems like it would be cruel, even if she means it. So instead she puts it into the tender sweep of her thumb against the corner of his mouth, and then she finally leans back. 

Carla sadly observes as he breathes out, then reaches for his phone in his pocket without looking at her. Despite herself, she glimpses at his screen as he scrolls through a short column of texts that he must’ve been getting over the past however many minutes. And speak of the devil, they’re all from Rebeka. 

He tucks his phone away again without responding to any of them. 

It’s here that Carla realizes how they’re still holding hands. 

“Aren’t you going to reply to those?”

“No,” he says, then sighs and looks down at her, “But I should probably get to class.”

“Yeah.” Carla nods resignedly, squares her shoulders, begins to disentangle their fingers—

But before she can completely pull away, Samuel grasps her hand and places a chaste kiss between two of her knuckles. Her body freezes; her breath follows suit in her lungs. 

“Carla, I just want you to know that you always have me,” he tells her, looking deep into her eyes. “No matter what you do or say. I’m going to be here for you. You’re not alone.”

It takes everything in her not to break down and cry, she can’t even speak. 

Samuel understands. He leans forward to kiss her forehead now. 

“I’ll see you in class,” he murmurs against her hairline. “Are you gonna be okay?” 

She swallows, smiles, and her answer is genuine when she finally finds her voice and replies, “For now.”


	12. sweet like a dream, or coffee and cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Samuel’s job at the café can get a little boring sometimes.
> 
> Then Carla becomes a regular.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for: an anon who, according to my photo album dating the screenshot of the prompt, requested this in AUGUST. i am so sorry and also this isn’t even the oldest prompt i have lfmakdkskd
> 
> rating: teen for the most part
> 
> prompt: the age old coffee shop au

It’s probably—definitely—stereotypical starving artist shit, being broke and working as a barista, but Samuel has to admit that his creative skills certainly give him an edge at his job at the café. He uses them for things like making perfect foam leaves on top of lattes, beautifully positioning the freezer-to-oven pastries in the display case… or, like right now, distracting himself from the boredom of the mid-afternoon lull in customers by drawing on the to-go cups of those who do come in.

He gets sort of lost in it, really; hardly looking up as he accepts the cups that are passed down the line to him, only taking his Sharpie and drawing the first thing that pops into his head next to the names scrawled in Omar’s slanted handwriting before filling the orders themselves. Ángel gets a double-shot Americano and, admittedly unoriginally, an angel drinking a coffee, and Samuel spots his raised eyebrows as he ducks out the door. Javier, a chai latte and a frog sitting on a leaf in a steaming cup; Samuel’s given a smile in return. Carla, an extra sweet marshmallow mocha and a sleeping cat, curled up like a croissant, and Samuel—

Well, he’s awarded with looking at the most gorgeous girl he’s ever seen, and then subsequently punished with the unfortunate curse of all his words dying in his throat.

Like a complete dumbass, he just stops and stares. Thankfully, it’s only for a couple seconds, because she arches an expectant brow at him, and that kickstarts him into approaching her. 

“Um, here,” he says, then scrambles not to sound like a total jerk. “I mean, um, here you go. Have a nice day.”

 _Smooth._ What’s smoother is that Samuel doesn’t outright drop her drink all over the countertop once she reaches over to take it from him, and his skin tingles as their fingers brush. 

She’s staring back at him, except her face is completely unreadable where he knows his is definitely not, and then she moves her eyes down to the cat he’d drawn beside _Carla._ Mentally, he tests the name, lets it sit on his tongue, trapped in his mouth. Carla. Carla. _Carla._

The corner of her lips turn up, but it’s so faint that Samuel’s only positive he’s seen it because he’d been looking for it.

“Thanks,” she responds (her _voice,_ god, he doesn’t think he’s ever going to forget the sound of it), and turns around and leaves. 

All Samuel can do is blink and watch her go, staring through the large windows until she disappears around the corner.

Something hard presses into his chest. On instinct, he grabs it before he even full registers what it is. He looks down at it in confusion before fixing the same look on Omar, who’s abandoned the register now that there aren’t any more customers to serve. 

“Why are you giving me a mop?”

“For the drool,” Omar replies with a knowing smirk, then laughs and skirts to the side as Samuel rolls his eyes, shoves the stupid mop back at him, and shuffles over to refill the pastry case. Omar follows, leaning against it instead of doing something useful, like helping. “I’ve never seen her before. Maybe she’ll become a regular.”

“Maybe,” Samuel says to the bizcocho, tone neutral.

“Dude, it’s kinda too late to play it cool now,” Omar points out. “You should’ve just asked her for her number.”

Yeah, he should have, except that he could barely get two words out without making an utter fool of himself. But besides that, Samuel pulls a face. “At work? That seems creepy.”

“Rebe does it, like, all the time.”

“She’s a girl. It’s different.”

“That’s sexist,” Omar says, eyes full of mirth. “I’m reporting you to H.R.”

Samuel shakes his head and unties his apron, not dignifying that with a response. “I’m going on my break.”

“All I’m saying is, who knows when you’ll see her again!” Omar laughingly calls after him as he walks out the back.

*

Three days. It’s three whole days later when he sees her again. 

It honestly takes him a while to notice her, though, on account of how busy they are, and he only looks up from where he’s tirelessly filling morning rush orders because Rebe’s using her rude, unimpressed voice—the take-no-bullshit one, and subsequently, the one that pretty much always guarantees her working the till during rush hours despite her infamous hatred of it. Samuel’s trained to look for danger whenever he hears that tone. Not that Rebe ever needs his help handling a difficult customer, but still.

“Are you gonna order, or what?” 

Actually, he isn’t sure what gets him to glance up, that or the way Rebe pops her gum for good measure after she says it, because for some reason it sounds unreasonably loud despite how noisy the shop is. But he does, and he finds himself looking at a familiar woman with silk-spun hair and olive eyes, a woman who hasn’t left his head once in seventy-two hours, standing right across from Rebe on the other side of the register. Only, it’s not Carla who his coworker is talking to, but the shorter, darker-haired girl next to her. 

That shorter, darker-haired girl immediately snaps her eyes from the menu to Rebe, face contorted into what he can only describe as a nasty and friendly scowl. 

“Excuse me?”

Rebe remains entirely unphased. Her complete disregard for whether or not she gets fired gives _her_ an edge at her job, in Samuel’s opinion. 

“Can’t you see that we’re busy? You’re holding up the line, Barbie,” she says, nodding her head at where it’s currently spilling out the door and partially onto the sidewalk. 

The “nice” part drops from the other girl’s scowl, so now it’s just a regular one, if not a thousand times more intense. “ _Bar—_?”

“Lu,” Carla cuts in warningly, but also in a practiced, vaguely impatient way, like this is something she’s used to. She places a hand on her friend’s arm as she takes half a step forward to get in Rebe’s face, either forgetting about or simply uncaring of the counter between them. 

Lu looks like she’s going to argue some more, before her expression relaxes into narrowed eyes and a thin, fake smile. A beat passes before she says, “I’ll have a non-fat caramel latte, no milk, foam, or sugar.”

Rebe stares at her flatly. Samuel blinks and tries to hide his amused smile as he picks up the next cup he needs to fill, although it breaks through anyway when he reads Carla’s name. He glances around, catches the way her eyes go up to the ceiling in annoyance, and fishes a pen out of his pocket. 

“So just a plain black coffee, then,” Rebe remarks.

“Obviously not.”

The taller girl stares at her, eyes slowly crinkling at the edges, then huffs a disbelieving sound and lifts up her Sharpie. “Fine, a caramel latte with absolutely nothing that gives it its name in it for Lu.”

When the two step up to the pick-up counter a few minutes later, Samuel’s at least slightly better prepared than he was the last time he spoke to Carla. Meaning, he doesn’t say anything at all, just offers her a smile that he hopes is more kind than weird, and hands her her coffee—not the same marshmallow mocha as before, but still something really sweet, which he finds kind of endearing. 

She’s gone almost just as quickly as she came, because they are pretty swamped, after all, and it’s not like Samuel can afford to silently stare at and appreciate her. No matter how much he currently wants to. 

But when she twists the cup around in her hand halfway out the door and gets a good look at the blue-inked caricature of a yelling Lu he’d hastily drawn on the sleeve, the laugh she lets out drowns at all other sounds around him. A car could crash directly through the café right now and he wouldn’t hear it. It could even hit him too, and yet, all he’d feel is this large wave of gratification that he doesn’t think will ever leave him. 

“What?” He actually does manage to hear Lu say.

“It’s nothing,” Carla recovers quickly, but then she meets his eyes through the window outside, and there’s a smirk tucked into the corner of her mouth. 

No, this feeling isn’t ever going to leave him at all. 

*

He tells himself that the third time’s a charm. When Carla comes in again, he’s going to finally have worked up the nerve to talk to her. He can’t explain it, but he finds the fifteen-inches of counter space that separates them comforting; it just gives him that added boost of confidence he needs for the next time he sees her. 

Unfortunately, when he does, a lot of things are different.

First, he actually is manning the register today, meaning he’s going to be exchanging more words with her than their last two conversations (if that’s what you could even call them) combined by default, whether he’s ready or not. Second, the café isn’t super busy but not totally dead either, which isn’t exactly important but something he weirdly notes, regardless. Third, she’s not with Lu, although still not alone. She’s with a guy. 

None of these are where the problem lies, though. Well, the “her being with a guy” thing kinda is one in itself, because he’s taller than Samuel and handsome and he and Carla sort of look like two untouchable supermodels standing next to each other, but this isn’t his point. 

His point, his _problem,_ is that instead of ordering to-go, she and the guy— _Ander_ , he’d said when Samuel asked his name for his iced coffee—decide to dine in. And just like that, Samuel’s fifteen-inch cushion is obliterated.

He watches the pair walk over to a table in the corner, chatting quietly, familiarly. That only adds onto his disappointment further, turning it into a huge, crushing weight. There’s no way those two aren’t together. Hell, how had he never considered the fact that Carla might have a boyfriend before? She’s way too stunning to be single. Not that if she _weren’t_ stunning it would make sense, he just means… yeah.

Shit.

“That’s the girl you haven’t been able to shut up about?”

Samuel sighs, tearing his eyes away and glancing at where Guzmán’s leaning against the sink behind him. He gives his friend a small, dejected nod.

“She’s cute,” Guzmán notes. “So why do you look like someone pissed in the tip jar?”

“Because she’s with that guy?” He gestures at where she and Ander are sitting, making sure that the counter hides the movement.

Guzmán scoffs. “And?”

“Dude, I’m not going to hit on her right in front of her boyfriend,” Samuel replies incredulously.

“That guy isn’t her boyfriend.” Guzmán’s grinning a little, and he subtly tips his chin up to get Samuel to look over his shoulder. “That guy is gay.”

Omar is pouring drinks, and from across the shop, Ander is making eye contact with him.

 _Flirty_ eye contact.

“Oh,” Samuel dumbly says.

“Yeah, so”—Guzmán regards the pastry case for a millisecond and pulls out a churro, plating it before shoving it into Samuel’s hands—“go give this complimentary dessert and her coffee to her, and then fucking asking her out.”

He bodily turns Samuel around when it becomes obvious that he isn’t going to do it himself, then gives him a little shove. Samuel stumbles—but only a little, and Carla thankfully doesn’t notice. He sends Guzmán a glare, gets met with a pair of widened eyes and a _hurry it up_ motion in return, and then he’s balancing the churro and two drinks in his arms and heading towards the corner table.

In the four seconds it takes for him to get there, however, all his worries come rushing back. Just because Ander’s not her boyfriend doesn’t mean she still doesn’t have one, and Samuel’s pretty sure he won’t be able to handle getting gently rejected in his place of work. How humiliating. 

Sadly, his plan to just dump everything down onto the tabletop as gracefully as he can possibly manage is effectively ruined by the stupid fucking churro. 

“Oh, we didn’t order this,” Carla says when he places it in front of her. 

“I know. It’s, uh, it’s on the house,” Samuel rather _un_ gracefully replies, internally beating himself up for it. He bobs his head in a nod, then tries to cover it by rubbing the back of his neck, because what the hell is he nodding at? “Well… enjoy.”

He bolts before he gets a chance to hear her standard thank you, and Guzmán is shaking his head at him in disbelief as he makes his way back behind the safe confines of the counter.

“What the fuck was that?”

Samuel sends him a heated look, but its weak and he’s one-hundred percent aware of it, so he just replies, “Shut up.”

“Unbelievable,” Guzmán mutters, still shaking his head and turning to grind some fresh coffee beans. “Seriously.”

But what’s really unbelievable is how twenty minutes later, Carla comes up to where Samuel’s absently wiping down the countertop to hand him her dishes, looks him over and says, “I missed your drawing this time around.”

It disarms him so much, he almost blurts out a _what?_ on instinct. Then he registers how he hadn’t actually drawn her anything on account of her using the ceramic mugs for dine-ins, and then he realizes how what she’s saying implies that she’d been looking _forward_ to it.

And that just wipes his brain all over again.

“Oh, I—um, I’m sorry,” he stumbles, but can’t even lament his ineloquency now because Carla’s face is creasing in poorly-contained amusement at his awkwardness and her eyes are warm, _fond._ His own tick all over her face, trying to commit her expression to memory. “I’ll be sure to remember the next time.”

The edge of her mouth curls upwards, and she slightly tilts her head to the side as she regards him. 

“Until then,” she says, smirk deepening, “Samuel.”

The way she says his name is somehow different than he’s ever heard it before. The second syllable is cut deeper, lower, softer and sharper at the same time, and suddenly, Samuel never wants anybody else to say it ever again. Hearing it come from her is completely and utterly addicting, and nothing will measure up to it from here on out. 

She doesn’t look back at him as she and Ander leave, but for some reason, Samuel can tell she’s still got that smile on her face.

“She knew my name,” he distantly says once the door chimes behind her. 

“That’s because she can read,” Guzmán responds, pointing at the name tag pinned to Samuel’s shirt. 

Samuel frowns, effectively drawn out of his euphoric reverie. “You’re really bad at being a wingman, you know that?”

“You’re even worse at picking up girls. She’s been in three times now and all you’ve done is gape at her like a creep. But the guy she was with came in once, and Omar’s already got his number.”

“What?”

As if on cue, Omar walks up to them, completely unaware of their conversation. He’s beaming, eyes hardly visible because of it. “Check it out,” he says, and triumphantly waves a coffee sleeve in the air, a line of digits scrawled on its side. 

Guzmán just gives Samuel a pointed look.

“Fuck,” Samuel groans, burying his face in his hand. 

*

She’s by herself, he’s prepared for the fact that she orders in again, and better yet, it’s Guzmán’s day off, so he isn’t here to throw Samuel into the deep end. 

Nevertheless, he doesn’t initiate any conversation with her. She’s been exclusively switching her attention between her laptop’s screen and the notebook splayed out in front of her, and he doesn’t want to be that guy who bothers her when she’s clearly trying to study. Midterm season is here, which he knows not because he’s a student himself, but because he’s been on shift with Nadia a lot this week. When she isn’t taking orders, she’s hunched over a political science textbook and sending him glares whenever he makes too much noise cleaning the espresso machine. 

It’s fine, though—Carla’s studies putting a block on his new attempt to speak to her, that is. He doesn’t mind it. Not because he’s trying to put it off, not entirely; he just likes seeing her in this new element, where she’s clearly not paying attention to anything around her. 

Strands of her hair fall in her face as she writes something down in her notebook, and after the third time of it escaping from behind her ear, she lets out an irritated huff and quickly ties her hair back with the scrunchie on her wrist. When she’s concentrating particularly hard on a line of text on her laptop, she gets this little furrow between her eyebrows, lips parting just a little. And sometimes, she chews on her bottom lip as she’s thinking.

The last one kind of makes him squirm a bit, but all in all, everything about it is mostly just cute. So no, he doesn’t have a problem with just observing her whatsoever. He _does_ have a problem with the fact that she’s been here for two hours and hasn’t eaten a single thing despite it being well-past lunch time, though.

Carla glances up at him in surprise when he sets down the ham sandwich he’d thrown together, and Samuel’s heart skips a beat once she fixes those big, green eyes on him. For some reason, he doesn’t feel the need to fill the space with words. He just smiles, and wordlessly walks back behind the register to take the order of the customer that had just walked in. 

As he’s pouring the man’s dark roast, he watches Carla lift the sandwich and reveal the napkin it’d been resting on out of the corner of his eye. A soft smile of her own twitches on her lips as she looks upon the drawing: the same cat he’d done for her on the first day they met, not sleeping anymore, but stretching off its slumber. 

_Thank you,_ she mouths from her table.

 _Anytime,_ he mouths back, and he’s blushing, he knows he is, but still.

Progress.

*

Occasionally, when Marina and Nano are both working and are in desperate need of a babysitter, he agrees to watch his niece for the afternoon. This actually just entails him taking Esméralda to work with him and keeping an eye on her throughout his shift, because between her parents and Samuel, his job is the most suited for a kid. Also, he usually has another overprotective aunt or uncle there to help him. 

Rebe had called in sick today, however—which Samuel knows is total bullshit considering they’d been at a bar last night, she got a text from some mysterious person around twelve, and then left to hook up with said mysterious person; but it’s _fine,_ business has been slow—and when he looks up from handing a middle-aged woman her green tea and at the table he’d sat Esmé at this morning, it’s decidedly vacant. 

His heart instantly starts hammering in his chest. The kid has got her mom’s natural curiosity and her dad’s knack for trouble, sure, but she knows better than to just wander off. He’s brought her to work practically hundreds of times before. This _never—_

Suddenly, his anxiety simmers down a little as his frantically searching eyes land on a familiar head of chestnut hair… seated right across from an even more familiar blonde one.

Samuel darts out from behind the counter and over to what has become Carla’s usual table so fast, he’s positive he’s nothing more than a blur of plaid and denim. 

“Esmé, you can’t just walk away without telling me, alright? I was about to start freaking out,” he breathes, already in the process of removing her from her chair as he sends Carla an apologetic look. “Has she been here long? I’m sorry if she bothered you, let me just—”

“Only for a few seconds,” Carla answers him, shaking her head, then she regards his niece with a conspiratorial smile. “And she’s not a bother at all.”

He immediately pauses, his grip on Esmé’s arms loosening a little, and blinks dumbfoundedly. “Oh.”

“I made a new friend,” Esmé says cheerily, looking up at him. “Her name’s Carla. She’s very pretty.”

Great, his four year-old niece has befriended Carla before he has. Not that he only wants to be _friends_ with her, but, well. 

“I know,” he replies without thinking, realizes how that probably sounds, and widens his eyes. “I-I mean—I know her name is Carla.”

There’s a twinkle to Carla’s eye that sort of thrills him, sort of worries him. She arches a perfectly plucked brow. “So you don’t think I’m pretty?”

Samuel looks at her, then looks at Esmé, then looks back at Carla again, all the while opening and closing his mouth like a nutcracker. 

Then, words finally seem to return to him, and fast. 

“No, no, of course I do!” He replies way too eagerly. Shit, _tone it down._ Samuel pushes a hand through his hair and opens his mouth to hopefully regain some of his dignity, but whatever he was going to say is demolished by the sound of Carla’s laugh ringing in his ears.

 _Jesus,_ it’s even more dizzying up close. 

It suddenly occurs to him that this is the longest he’s ever stood this close to her; usually, he just drops off whatever she ordered—or didn’t—and retreats back to the employees-only part of the café. He instantly notices a handful of details about her that he hadn’t before: the freckles dusted across the bridge of her nose, the tiny scar at the corner of her mouth, the little mole on her collarbone.

He wants to kiss every single one of them. He wants to discover more in places that aren’t immediately obvious. He—

He definitely should not be thinking about stuff like this with his niece sitting right in front of him, that’s for damn sure. Fortunately, he’s stopped by Carla herself, completely unaware of the type of thoughts whirling around in his head. 

“Relax, I’m just messing with you,” she says, more kind than outright pitying.

It does actually help. He lets out a quiet laugh of his own at his expense and shakes his head. Carla’s smile widens as her eyes flick over him, just a bit, and when he meets them, he feels a little calmer. 

“Yeah. Sorry, I think I’m still reeling from the panic of thinking she ran off or got kidnapped.” He looks down at his niece and cups his hand around her shoulder. “But we’ll leave you alone now. It’s time for her to eat lunch, anyway.”

“She can eat it with me.”

He pauses, looking at Carla. “Are you sure?”

She shrugs lightly. “I like the company. I can watch her while you work, that way you don’t run the risk of cardiac arrest again.” She beams at Esmé. “That is, if you want to?”

Esmé nods enthusiastically. “Can I, Uncle Samu?”

His eyes are still on Carla. “Well, if you’re really okay with it…” He trails off, hesitant. 

“Seriously, Samuel, I don’t mind.” He doesn’t budge an inch, but it has nothing to do with any remaining traces of doubt and everything to do with her saying his name again. Carla rolls her eyes in lighthearted exasperation and nods her head at something behind him. “ _Go,_ you have people waiting for you at the register.”

“What?” 

He glances over his shoulder at the three people standing in line, clearly and rapidly growing impatient. 

“Fuck—sorry,” he winces in apology at the scandalized look Esmé shoots him for swearing, backing away from the table, “Okay, thank you so much, seriously—”

“Samuel,” Carla says, the edges of her mouth twitching.

“Right, yeah, sorry,” he rambles, returning to the register and flashing the business suit-clad man across from him a smile. “Forgive me, what can I get for you?”

He must have jinxed himself with the whole “it’s fine, business has been slow” thing, because next thing he knows, he’s absolutely swamped with a rare but not unfamiliar mid-afternoon rush. He’s pretty grateful that Carla had volunteered to watch Esmé for him, because he has absolutely no time to spare outside of steaming milk, pouring coffee, and snapping on lids for the next hour and a half. It’s only when he’s finishing up with a group of teenagers that he finally registers there’s nobody else in line, and he checks in on Carla and Esmé’s table. 

Esmé has since moved to the seat beside Carla, pushed a little closer to her so that she can see whatever they’re looking at on Carla’s laptop better. Probably her favorite movie, because even though he can’t hear what she’s saying, Esmé’s chatting in that all-too-familiar way she does whenever she’s making Samuel watch _Tangled_ for the thousandth time. 

Carla’s got her cheek resting in her hand, watching Esmé prattle on with a half-amused, half-fond smile on her face more than she’s watching the movie. And then she flicks her eyes up and meets Samuel’s, and instead of turning into a mess like he usually does, he smiles back. 

Of course, she’s good with kids. If he wasn’t a goner before, he certainly is now. 

“Okay, okay, sorry I’m late, work was shitty today.”

Samuel looks away from Carla and at the mass of red curls suddenly standing opposite him, then at the cheap digital clock near the register. Esmé was supposed to get picked up twenty minutes ago. 

“It’s alright. I didn’t realize it was already three, honestly. I just got done running back-and-forth for the past hour,” he tells Marina, stepping out from behind the counter to hug her hello. “C’mon, Esmé’s just over there.”

“And who is this random stranger you’ve left my daughter in the care of, hm?” Marina asks, low enough so only he can hear as they approach.

“She’s a… friend.” That doesn’t feel like the truth, but it doesn’t feel like a lie, either. What he can say with the utmost honesty is, “I trust her.”

“A friend, huh,” she replies funnily, and then a beaming smile splits her face as Esmé looks up and notices her, hopping out of her chair and practically bouncing into her arms.

“Mommy!”

“Hi, honey. How was your day?”

“Really great. Uncle Samu let me sit with my new friend. We watched _Tangled_.” She leans forward and lowers her voice in a hushed whisper that’s not all that hushed whatsoever. “She has hair like Rapunzel.”

Over Esmé’s head, he and Carla share an amused smile. 

“I can see that,” Marina tells her daughter indulgently, then shifts her around in her arms so she can free a hand and extend it to Carla. “I’m Marina. Esmé wasn’t too much trouble? She can be sort of a handful.”

Carla shakes her head. “She’s great. I hope we can hang out again soon.”

“Me too,” Esmé says brightly, turning to her mom. “Can I come back tomorrow?”

“You have school tomorrow, baby,” she gently reminds her. Esmé starts pouting, so Marina jumps to soothe her before she can delve too deep into temper-tantrum territory. “But I’m sure you’ll see each other again. And then you can watch _Tangled_ some more, yeah?”

That instantly brightens the little girl’s face. Carla, Samuel, and Marina all chuckle, and then the latter says, “Well, we should get going, I still need to figure out dinner. Meaning, what I’m going to order.” She shoots Carla another smile, absently accepting Esmé’s glittery backpack that Samuel hands to her. “It was nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

“Bye, Carla!” Esmé waves over Marina’s shoulder as they walk through the door. 

Carla waves back. When they’ve disappeared around the side of the building, she looks at Samuel. “So, your niece, huh?”

He chuckles. “Yeah. Sorry she roped you into her _Tangled_ crusade. You’re probably going to get the worst of it since you’ve got the hair,” he says, gesturing at his own head. 

“I have a feeling I’ll manage,” she says with a small, kind grin. “Is Marina your sister?”

“Oh, no. My brother’s girlfriend,” he explains. “I’m glad it was her who came to pick Esmé up and not him, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because he would’ve wasted no time in embarrassing me in front of you.”

Carla’s smile deepens. “You seem to handle that well-enough on your own, I think.” A laugh bubbles out of him, although he’s not as humiliated as he probably should be on account of the fact that Carla seems to be sizing him up. Appreciatively. Carla is _appreciating_ him. “Good thing I also think it’s kinda cute, then.”

_Cute. Carla thinks he’s cute._

She checks her watch. “Shit, I have a meeting I need to get to.” 

Samuel watches blankly as she packs away her things, the word _cute_ bouncing around in his brain like a screensaver on one of those old computers. Suddenly, she’s standing. 

_Suddenly,_ she’s placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning over to brush her lips against his cheek. 

“I’ll see you around, Samuel.”

He licks his own lips. Swallows. Tries not to lean into her too much; tries even harder not to turn his head and meet her mouth in full. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. “See you.”

And then all that’s left of her is the lingering scent of her shampoo and perfume in his nose, and the searing touch of her hand on his arm. 

He feels it all throughout the rest of his shift, as if she’s still standing there touching him. It’s so distracting, so vivid, that when he gets home, he stalks into the bathroom, peels off his shirt, and half-expects a bruise to be staring back at him. Then he just feels ridiculous. 

Still, he spends the entire night thinking about the fact that Carla kissed him. 

It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t work tomorrow, but he has half a mind to show up to the shop, anyway.

*

It isn’t often Samuel works the closing shift, but because he’s a good friend, he’d switched with Omar so that he could go on a date. Now here Samuel is, mopping the café’s floors by himself on a Saturday night as opposed to… sitting in his apartment and watching reruns by himself on a Saturday night.

Whatever, he doesn’t actually mind closing. The shop stays open later than most, and only the truly desperate ever actually come in past seven p.m.; most people are either heading home to have their own coffee or getting ready to hit the streets for something stronger. He’s usually left with a few boring hours to kill, but it’s easy money, and far be it from Samuel to complain about that.

The after-hours clean-up is kind of fun in its own way, too. He’s got his earbuds in, music library on shuffle and phone volume cranked up way high, and he’s long since abandoned the standard and steady back-and-forth, side-to-side strokes with the mop in favor of in-sync movements with his music. He’s careful not to slip and crack his head open as he dances around the shop, singing to himself. 

He’s just spinning around and using the end of the mop’s handle as a microphone when he pops his eyes open and finds Carla standing on the other side of the window, watching him. 

She’s got her eyebrows raised and her eyes are absolutely glinting with mirth, although she’s at least trying to hide the giant smile that is clearly threatening to break out on her face, based on the dimple that is peeking out at him. He only focuses on that for a millisecond before he realizes just how much of an idiot he must look like, feels his face turn beet red, and shuffles over to the door to open it.

“How long have you been standing there?” He asks, only slightly out of breath.

“Long enough to see your little show. Have you considered starting an open-mic night here? Imagine the tips you’d draw in.”

He rolls his eyes playfully. In the week since she first met Esmé, he’s gotten used to Carla’s teasing—especially because, on the few days that his niece comes with him to work again, they like to gang up on him. Even so, being teased is infinitely less embarrassing than being caught having a one-man concert by the girl you’ve been crushing on for nearly a month, and he can still feel the lingering warmth on his neck because of it.

“I’ll pitch it to my boss,” he snorts. Then, genuinely curious, he asks, “What are you doing here?”

“Needed a pick-me-up after the night I’ve had.”

It’s here that he fully takes her in. She’s not wearing the skirts or dresses that he’s used to seeing her in. Well, she _is_ wearing a dress, but it’s decidedly less business-oriented and more on the fancy side. Actually, he’s pretty sure it’s the most expensive-looking thing he’s ever seen in his life.

And, of course, Carla looks as beautiful as ever in it. It’s a shimmery black garment, clinging tight to her hips, hugging high on her thighs. The collar is scooping low. Her hair is slicked back into a bun, makeup a little more exaggerated than normal. He feels a little bit dizzy. He’d blame it on the fumes from the cleaning solution he’d been using, but he knows better. 

However, he’s then struck with a sudden thought that has his stomach twisting. “Oh. Were you… on a date?”

There’s something in Carla’s eyes that he can’t quite get a read on as she looks at him, but her lips twist into a small smile. “No,” she answers after a moment. “Charity ball. Black-tie. Boring.”

He tries not to show just how much that confirmation fills him with relief, huffing a dry laugh. “I didn’t know you were so philanthropic.”

“I care about charity,” she replies staunchly, and in a way that has him believing her. “It’s just that, everyone else that usually attends those things don’t, they only pretend that they do. It gets tiring.”

“I don’t doubt that.” He wants to ask further about it, actually, but then he registers that she’s still outside, and she isn’t wearing a jacket. “Sorry, come in. But, um, about the coffee… I’ve already shut everything down and cleaned up. We’re closed.”

She slowly turns to face him as he shuts the door behind her, looking around as if she’s never been in here before. He has to admit, it does feel like a foreign place without the background noise of idle chatter or whirring machines surrounding them. Just the two of them. It’s so quiet.

It’s nice. 

“Well, shit.” Despite her words, Carla doesn’t seem as disappointed by this as one who just traveled however-many miles for this specific café probably should. And she could’ve gone to any other place that serves coffee, but she didn’t. She came here. “Mind if I wait for another cab to come pick me up, then?”

“Or I could give you a ride home,” he’s saying before he even realizes it. Carla’s eyes suddenly feel piercing, even though her expression hasn’t changed even remotely, and he resists the urge to shift his weight. “If you still don’t mind waiting for me to finish locking up, I mean.”

“Not at all.”

He can’t believe he’s both extremely excited and nervous about something so simple as driving Carla to her house, but also, he’s aware it isn’t just _that simple._

“Take a seat. It’ll be quick, I’m pretty much done.”

Carla goes to do just that—and then her foot slips in a stretch of the floor that hasn’t quite dried yet, making her stumble a little. Instinctively, Samuel steps forward and reaches out to steady her, his hands on her waist. He looks up at her and realizes just how close they are. Their noses are mere inches apart.

He clears his throat softly, but can’t bring himself to immediately pull away. “Um, here, let me just...” Carefully, he guides Carla to behind the counter, and only then does he finally let her go. He’s pretty sure that he’s just imagining the way her lash line slightly shivers as he straightens and gives her a shy smile. “I mopped this area first. It’s safer here.”

Her lips quirk humorously. “Worried I’ll hit my head and sue?”

“No, I’m worried you’ll hit your head, bleed everywhere, and then I’ll have to mop again,” he quips back, a laugh escaping his lips as Carla shoves him a little. 

True to his word, Samuel finishes up swiftly, and five minutes later he’s leading her back out the shop and around the side of the building to where he and the other employees fight for parking spots. As they step up to his small, shitty red car, he fidgets with his keys. 

“It’s no limousine, but…” He shrugs.

Carla waves him off, dismissive. “You could drive a unicycle for all I care, as long as I don’t have to stand in these fucking heels for a second longer.”

Even as he chuckles and they climb inside, he asks, “Why didn’t you go straight home, then?”

“Maybe I just like the coffee here,” she replies, a cryptic smile on her face. He holds her gaze for a moment, then starts the ignition.

Samuel can’t remember why he’d been anxious about giving Carla a ride home—he can’t remember why she makes him nervous at all, really, because it’s so natural with her. In between her giving him directions, they playfully fight over the radio, and then they playfully fight over music tastes in general when she makes him play the song that he’d been listening to earlier. They make a detour at a McDonald’s, and he doesn’t remember when that decision was made either, just that suddenly they’re sitting in the drive-thru and for some reason, he’s giggling as he orders Carla chicken nuggets and himself fries and a soda. Like they’re _eight._

Carla doesn’t get a coffee. He doesn’t comment on that. 

She’s halfway through her food when Samuel pulls onto a side road. He can feel the curious look she’s giving him from the passenger seat as he drives all the way to the end and puts the car in park.

“This isn’t the part where you kill me and leave my body in a ditch, right?”

He laughs, somehow delighted and incredulous, the sound abruptly bursting out of him. “ _What?_ ”

“That’s the reality for women, you know,” she tells him, sipping from his drink, a teasing smile curled around the straw despite the dark topic they’re on. Her shoulders shift in a shrug. “I’m just saying.”

“I promise, I’m not going to murder you. Just—look.”

And he points out the windshield at the expanse of Madrid stretched out below them, all tall buildings and twinkling lights. Carla looks. He takes his eyes off of the view to look at her.

“Wow,” she breathes, and he gets it, he does, even if they don’t exactly mean the same thing.

The corner of his mouth turns up. “Found this place when I was in high school. I like to come here whenever I need to think.”

“I’ve never seen the city from so high before,” she says distantly.

“Wanna take a closer look?”

Carla finally turns back to him. She appears so much younger than usual, and it suddenly occurs to him that he doesn’t actually know how old she really _is,_ just that she’s in university and therefore around his age. It also occurs to him that she normally just has a… mature air always around her, but mature in a way that he suspects means she never had the chance to be anything else, like she was forced to grow up way too quickly. 

In this moment, as she gives him a tiny nod, he can’t help but feel as if seeing Carla like this is as new for her as it is for him.

They get out, taking their food with them. Samuel offers her his hand to help her onto the hood of the car, because there isn’t a railing separating them from the outlook’s edge and there’s no way in hell he’s dumb enough to suggest sitting on the ground when she’s in that dress. He climbs on beside her, shrugging himself out of his hoodie and silently draping it over her shoulders. Carla just smiles and steals one of his fries. 

From up here, the sounds of the city are far-off, muted. It sort of feels like sitting in an empty bedroom at a party, trapped in your own world. He watches Carla tip her head back and breathe in deeply, eyes falling shut on an incoming breeze. They open again when he absently tugs a dislodged strand of hair behind her ear, and she looks at him without actually looking at him. 

“You’re really strange, Samuel.”

He huffs. “Thanks?”

“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before,” she continues. “Take it as a compliment.”

He isn’t sure what sets him apart from anyone else. But he does.

For the most part, they sit in silence. It isn’t tense or awkward. Because fair is fair, he takes one of her chicken nuggets. She chucks one at his head, and then finishes off his coke. He draws her a cat on the back of the fry carton, and neither of them comment on how its eyes look a little too much like her own. 

Eventually, they end up on their backs, leaning on the windshield. He tells her about dropping out of art school in the middle of his first year. She tells him about how she’s balancing her studies with also trying to run a business she never wanted for herself. He tells her about growing up with Nano. She tells him she’s an only child. He tells her that he doesn’t know her age. She tells him that she’s only a month older than him. 

He tells her that he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about her since the moment they met. She doesn’t tell him anything in return at all. When he glances down at her, he finds her fast asleep, her temple resting against his shoulder.

So Samuel tells her that he’s pretty sure he’s in love with her, and then he gently wakes her up.

*

“I don’t know, Rebe. I’m tired. I was kinda just looking forward to staying in tonight.”

The tall girl rolls her eyes and follows Samuel over to a table that has just been vacated, heedless of the fact that they’re the only two on shift and at least one of them should stay behind the counter. She doesn’t even help him clear the used dishes, just keeps pestering him about this stupid party she’s been trying to convince him to go to for the past five minutes.

“You stay in, like, six out of seven nights of the week,” she points out—which, _hey,_ it’s not _that_ much. And even if it is, he works a lot, and hard. The same can’t be said for Rebeka. “Just come. I don’t want to be stuck slumming it with all of Lu’s snobby rich friends, I need to be around someone at least slightly normal.”

“Wow, thanks.” He sighs in annoyance. “You and Lu don’t even like each other. Why the hell would she invite you to a party at her house? Why would you even want to _go?_ ”

Rebe doesn’t answer either of those questions. Instead, she casually says, “Pretty sure Blondie’s gonna be there.”

Samuel instantly pauses in his wipe-down of the tabletop. He hasn’t seen Carla since he dropped her off last Saturday; she hasn’t been in the shop at all this week. It’s unusual, because before, he’d see her on almost every shift he had. He’d admittedly been a little worried about her, wondering if something had happened, and then he wondered if _he_ had been the something that happened. Maybe he fucked up, somehow. Maybe she heard what he whispered into the top of her hair on that outlook and she freaked out. 

Of course, he would have texted her at some point in the last seven days to take it all back, but he doesn’t even have her number. 

He can feel Rebe’s triumphant smirk boring into the back of his head and grumbles, “Why didn’t you just lead with that in the first place?”

Work goes by faster than usual. Rebe meets him at his apartment a couple hours after their shift, and when he opens the door, she looks him over and raises her eyebrow. 

“What?” He asks, suddenly self-conscious. 

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

He frowns and looks down at himself. “What’s wrong with this?”

She fondly shakes her head with a chuckle. “Only you would wear a t-shirt and jeans to a party,” she says, then slings her arm over his shoulder. “Nothing. Come on, I’ve got a cab waiting out front.”

The party’s already jumping when they get there, and just like he hadn’t been surprised last weekend when Carla’s directions had him pulling up in front of a literal mansion, Rebe doesn’t seem surprised by the fact that Lu’s place isn’t all that different. In fact, she kind of seems like she’s been here before, but then again, she has a natural talent of adapting to her surroundings that he’s always been a little envious of. She seamlessly weaves her way through the ocean of foreign bodies, sometimes adding an elbow where it’s needed, and Samuel follows her.

They end up in the kitchen, which has the least amount of people in it. Still, the house is of that open-floor design, and they’re granted with a view of the rest of the place as they lean against the marble countertop. The complicated-looking heels Rebe’s wearing tonight have given her several inches above a lot of the people in here—including himself—and she uses it to her advantage, glancing about.

Then, “I’m going to get a drink,” she yells to him over the music blaring from some unknown source. It seems to be permeating through the house from an invisible speaker system. “Want anything?”

“Surprise me,” he calls back, which definitely means he’s going to be getting a rum and coke, cemented by the wink she gives him before disappearing into the crowd. 

He tucks himself into his section of the counter and does what Rebe had been doing just a moment ago, which is look around. Not that he hadn’t been earlier; now, he just doesn’t have a witness to the fact that he’s searching for Carla. Part of him is a little apprehensive. If she has been avoiding him for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to come off as a stalker by being here.

Shit, he didn’t really think about that. He should’ve just stayed home. Would Rebe kill him if he ditched her not even a full ten minutes after arriving? Probably. Would death be preferable over the humiliation of Carla not wanting to see him? _Definitely._

He’s not enough of an asshole to actually leave, at least not without a heads-up, but still. He considers it. 

“Order for Samuel,” a voice says, and in spite of his thoughts, in spite of how he feels goosebumps erupt on his neck, in spite of _everything,_ he can’t help but smile.

“Beer, no foam,” Carla continues in her shittiest barista impersonation when he turns to face her, a smirk on her lips. He doesn’t know what part of her to focus on, it’s almost like seeing a dream come to life after the week he’s had of being deprived of her, so he settles on the uncapped bottle she’s offering him instead. 

“You’re such a dork,” he laughs, accepting it. 

“Oh, _I’m_ the dork? You’re the one standing in the corner at a party, alone,” she says lightheartedly.

He grins, watching as she takes a sip from her own beer. A moment passes. And then he’s speaking before he can stop himself.

“I missed you.”

Carla’s eyes lower from whatever she’d been looking at, and when she pulls her bottle away from her lips, they’re pursed around the alcohol in her mouth in a small smile. She swallows it down and brings her eyes up to him. 

“I’ve been sick practically all week. I only just started to feel like an actual human being again yesterday.” Maybe he’s more transparent than he thought, because there’s something tender and apologetic in her gaze as she adds, “I wasn’t ignoring you.”

He automatically shakes his head. “I didn’t think that.” Carla just gives him a look, and he huffs, rubbing his neck. “Okay, maybe I did think that.”

Thankfully, she doesn’t ask why, because he doesn’t have an answer prepared that isn’t the truth.

“Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?”

“Omar says it’s a severe character flaw,” he scoffs.

“It’s a little endearing,” she says, and then all of a sudden, she’s slipping her free hand into his and pushing off of the counter. Samuel’s too struck by the feel of her palm against his own to properly fight against being led away, but also, he’s pretty positive he’d go anywhere she asked regardless. “But sometimes it’s fun not to think about anything at all.”

Much like Rebe had, Carla pushes through the mass of people with ease. Unlike his friend, it’s almost like the crowd _parts_ for Carla, or maybe that’s just his brain playing tricks on him. Either way, next thing he knows, they’re in the middle of the dance floor. Carla turns around to face him, already swaying to the beat pulsing in all the atoms that make up his entire being. And every last one of them practically dissolves the moment she smiles up at him and drapes her arms over his shoulders.

They dance. He’s not even paying attention to the music, to anyone around him. All there is, is Carla. Carla’s waist in his hands, Carla’s back to his chest, Carla’s hips to his hips. Her skin is glowing with the fluorescent lights and a faint sheen of sweat. He feels like he’s going to burst out of his own any second now.

He loses track of time, or bypasses it altogether. At some point, they leave the dance floor and collapse onto a free section of the couch, giggling at something stupid. At another, they’re in the kitchen again, munching on weirdly high-end snacks and drinking more uncomplimentary beer. 

Carla mentions finding something stronger, and that’s when everything abruptly catches back up to him.

“Oh, shit.” He widens his eyes and whips his head around, vaguely registering Carla asking him if everything’s okay. “I totally forgot. Rebe went to get me a drink _hours_ ago, fuck—”

He starts to fumble with his phone, but catches Carla’s slight frown in his peripheral before he can check if he has any missed calls or texts. “Rebe’s here?”

“Uh, yeah? I didn’t come to this thing by myself.”

“No, I know, I just thought—I thought you came with Omar.”

It’s his turn to frown, bewildered. “Why would I be with Omar? He’s not even...”

Samuel trails off as Carla tips her chin up and looks over his shoulder. He follows her gaze to where Omar is against the far wall, hands on Ander’s neck, tongue in his mouth. 

Well, fuck. 

Still, he wonders where Rebe has gone off to—

His jaw slackens a little in surprise as he catches sight of her being led down the hall to what he assumes are the bedrooms by a smirking _Lu,_ of all people.

Carla’s amused chuckle beside him is enough to shock him out of his, well, shock. “I knew they were hooking up, but to ditch a party she’s throwing in the middle of it? Lu must really like her.”

“They’re hooking up? Since when?” He doesn’t even bother to try to hide his utter confusion from his voice. “Don’t they hate each other? They’ve spoken, like, once.”

“They’ve been seeing each other for the past month,” Carla says slowly, eyebrows raised like he’s missed the obvious. “Like Ander and Omar have.”

He knew Omar had gone on a date or two with Ander, but that’s all he thought they were. Where the hell has he been?

He’s drawn out of his deep attempt to process this information when he notices Carla studiously watching him. He slides his eyes to her. She’s got a faint, conspiratorial grin playing at the edges of her mouth. 

“What is it?” He asks, somewhat apprehensive. 

His question is answered by Carla pulling him down by the neck and sliding their lips together. 

Samuel is stiff for all of half a second before he’s melting into her, hand instinctively coming up to her hip to brace her—or probably himself. He can feel nails curling ever-so-slightly in his hair; five sharp points against his scalp. She tastes like pintxos and beer, and underneath it all, a little like the sugary sweet drinks she always orders whenever she comes in the shop. 

Basically, she tastes exactly like he thought she would. All that, and everything more than he could have ever imagined. 

When Carla finally pulls back and brushes their noses together, he doesn’t dare to open his eyes. Just in case he’s dreaming. 

“What was that for?” He whispers. 

“I just realized something.” He finally, slowly, cracks his eyes. Stares at her mouth and waits for her to go on. “You are so oblivious, if I left it up to you, we would have never gotten anywhere.”

Samuel laughs delightedly, breathlessly, and then kisses her matching smile off her face.

He puts a month’s worth of pent-up _everything_ into it. Carla moans and grips him tighter like she understands. 

*

“You know, for how shy you’ve been, I really wasn’t expecting this from you,” Carla half-gasps, half-laughs as he shoves her against the supply shelf in the café’s back room, hands already sliding up her skirt. 

He doesn’t answer her until he’s getting back up to his feet a handful of minutes later, feeling more than a little smug when he gets a good look at the sated expression on her face, the blush high on her cheeks. He kisses the sensitive spot on her neck that he has gotten very well-acquainted with in such a short amount of time, smirking into the weak shiver it elicits from her. 

“I wasn’t shy.” Even though he can’t see it, he can tell Carla’s giving the ceiling a flat, unimpressed stare. He huffs a conceding laugh. “Fine, so you made me a little nervous.”

“And all this time, you were a pervert,” she hums teasingly. “Who knew.”

Samuel leans back, opening his mouth to indignantly defend himself, but he’s cut off by the sound of the door opening. Despite the fact that they’re fully clothed, the both of them freeze—it’s pretty obvious what they’d been doing. 

Omar is giving them the widest, most shit-eating grin. 

Then he takes the rag that’s draped over his shoulder and tosses it to Samuel, who catches it automatically. He frowns down at it. “What’s this for?”

Somehow, Omar’s smile deepens. He gestures at his chin. “For the—”

He ducks back out just as Samuel chucks the rag back at his head and flips him off, Carla’s laughter stifled into his shoulder. 


	13. if the fates allow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shit. This was a _terrible_ idea.”
> 
> “Nah. I only hate that I can’t take a picture of you right now and send it to the group chat.” He smiles innocently at her when she narrows her eyes at him.
> 
> “If I was brave enough to remove either of my hands right now, I’d flip you off. Or hit you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating: a weird mixture of like general, teen, and mature bc sex jokes and/or mentions of sex
> 
> additional tags: christmas fluff!!! so toothrotting it gives toothrotting a new meaning probably!!! genuinely i think the last christmas thing i’ve written was like five years ago, which is crazy. i’ve had this planned for a while now and it mostly stemmed from me wanting to see carla tuck her cold nose into samuel’s neck and also headcanoning that she is absolutely horrible at something i won’t mention so i don’t completely spoil this short ass one shot kdjskdjd
> 
> of course, since this is a christmas themed fic, the title is taken from a christmas song. specifically sam smith’s cover of “have yourself a merry little christmas,” and lastly, while google informed me that there is a christmas carnival at plaza mayor, i pretty much made almost everything else up. as is my right <3

“I don’t get how you’re always so fucking warm,” Carla grumbles as a shiver wracks through her for the thousandth time since they stepped out of the safe, insulated confines of their car.

“And I don’t get how you’re still freezing,” Samuel replies, amusement coloring his voice. “You’re wearing three layers.”

He pointedly looks her up-and-down. She’s wearing a red, oversized turtleneck underneath a parka jacket, and he knows that she’s also got a long-sleeved shirt under both of those things, too. Her legs are only clad in a pair of tight-fitting jeans, but she’s wearing, like, two pairs of wool socks beneath her boots. 

She looks really cute, honestly. It’s their first holiday season together as a couple, and while he has occasionally seen her in an old sweater that she swears never sees the light of day in public or one of his own hoodies, just a little too big for her, this entire look is different. Her hair is falling loosely around her shoulders, a few wisps stuck to her lip gloss, and her nose is slightly pink. 

He kind of really wants to kiss it, but then it scrunches adorably, because Carla is still keen on arguing with him about body temperature.

“All you’re wearing is a jacket and t-shirt. How are _you_ not freezing?”

He does have his jacket zipped all the way up to his chin, but he still rolls his eyes and says, “It’s not even that cold out. Seriously, how did you handle all those times you went somewhere with actual snow?”

“By almost never leaving the central heating of whatever place I was staying at,” she says, then a sultry smirk tugs on the corner of her lips as she looks him over, stepping closer and dancing her fingers across his chest. “Although, I can think of another way you can warm me up…”

Samuel’s hands naturally come to rest on her waist even as he chuckles and shakes his head. “Carla, I’m not having sex with you here.”

“Why not? You had sex with me in a bar.”

“In a bar bathroom,” he clarifies, trying desperately to ignore how his own body is heating up just from this conversation and the memories it’s bringing alone. “Where we had at least a little privacy, and weren’t surrounded by hundreds of people and their families.”

As if to back his statement, a child delightedly calls out and runs to the line for meet-and-greet pictures with Santa a few feet away from them. Samuel just raises his eyebrows at Carla, and she petulantly huffs in a way that causes him to laugh. 

“You’re so boring,” she grouses, but he doesn’t take it to heart, because she lets him grab her by the hand and lead her along the path they’d been standing off to the side of anyway. 

He grins. “And whose plan was it to come to the Christmas market, hm? I was perfectly fine with staying at home, cuddled in bed with you.”

A smile plays at the edges of her mouth, and she attempts to hide it by pursing her lips and ignoring him. Samuel just lets it slide—he knows why she wanted to come here, or at least has a suspicion why. The carnival at Plaza Mayor is something that _normal_ people do; normal is something that neither of them have been in a very long time and have only recently begun re-learning. It’s simple, and innocent in a sort of child-like way that he’s sure Carla’s never been _at all_. He wonders if she’s even ever gone to this thing. He can’t really picture her parents taking her, not even when she was a little girl.

But those are questions for later, because Samuel doesn’t want to possibly ruin her good mood. And, okay, he doesn’t want to make her too over aware of just how much she seems to be enjoying herself either, just in case she starts trying to dampen it. Carla’s normally controlled with herself and her emotions; it’s rare to see her act so unbiddenly, like when she catches sight of a bottle toss game and delightedly tugs him over to it with a wide smile spread across her face. It’s adorable. It’s the _real_ Carla that only he usually gets to see, and he likes that she feels safe and happy enough to let others see her like this right now, too. 

“What?” Carla asks when she notices him staring at her, and he just bends down to place a gentle kiss on her lips.

“I like you,” he replies once he leans back, shrugging his shoulders and beaming.

Her cheeks may already be flushed because of the cold, but he has no doubt that the pleased little blush she gets whenever he says something that catches her a bit off-guard is now mixed in there as well. 

“Nice to know,” Carla murmurs, then purses her lips and pretends to look up toward the darkened sky in thought. “Jury’s still out on if I feel the same, though.”

“How about if I win you one of these age-appropriate stuffed animals?” He asks, leaning into peck her pouted lips again.

She breaks out into a smile. “Couldn’t hurt.”

Samuel offers the man standing inside the bottle toss booth a few bills, getting a basket of worn rubber balls in return. As they’ve always been, the game is obviously rigged so that anyone who plays never wins any of the _big_ prizes, but he does manage to score an admittedly ugly cat toy with eyes that are vaguely creepy if you stare too long at them, in the end.

He hands it over to Carla with a laugh as they walk away. “The most priceless gift you’ll ever receive.”

He means it as a joke, though there’s still the faint sting of insecurity behind it as he can’t help but think of all the diamonds and necklaces she’s undoubtedly received in the past. 

And Carla must be able to tell, because she smiles softly at him and hugs the cat to her chest. “I love it,” she says sincerely. “And I love you.”

“Skipping directly over like to love? Aren’t we moving a little too fast?”

Carla sucks her teeth and shoves him lightly, making him laugh. He hooks their hands back together and pulls her against his torso; she goes willingly, tucking her smile and the tip of her reddened nose into the warmth of his neck.

“Still cold?”

She nods. “I can’t feel my hands.”

“Here,” he says, leaning back and unwinding Carla’s arms from where she’s wrapped them around his waist. She watches him, vaguely curious, as he tucks the cat toy underneath his elbow, cups his hands over hers, and then brings them up to his mouth, blowing hot air over them. After a moment, he asks, “Better?”

For a beat, she just looks at him. Then she scoffs in disbelief, shaking her head at herself. “I can’t believe your corny shit works on me.”

“Hey, I’m a _textbook romantic,_ ” he corrects.

“You have the moves of, like, a twelve year-old boy or eighty year-old man. There’s no in-between.”

Samuel gives her a cheeky grin. “And yet, they work on you.”

“Somehow, yes, they do.” She looks at him, unimpressed. “Don’t get smug about it.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he replies, not even bothering to hide how he very much already is. “Come on. Let’s get hot chocolate.”

“See? Twelve year-old boy.”

Samuel’s pretty sure that if there’s anyone who’s acting like a primary schooler here, it’s Carla as he watches her order a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows _and_ whipped cream, but he keeps his mouth shut. Sometimes he can be smart.

The two of them walk around the market, sipping their drinks and occasionally stopping at the shop stalls to look around. Mostly, they just talk aimlessly and about nothing in particular—that is, until the skating rink comes into view and Carla mentions something that almost has Samuel spilling his hot chocolate all over himself in surprise.

“What? How have you never been ice skating, Carla?” 

“I didn’t say I’ve never been. I said I haven’t been since I was seven and tried it for the first time, and then never went again.”

Samuel stares at her. Then, pressing his lips together in a determined line, he grabs her hand and begins walking over to the rink’s rental booth. “Let’s go. We’re doing this.”

“Samuel, there’s a _reason_ I haven’t gone since,” she tries to protest, although it comes out with a laugh as he continues to drag her along.

“You’ve been to almost every famous wintertime vacation spot in the world, and you haven’t gone skating since you were _seven._ ” He shakes his head. “I thought you were cultured.”

“Your blood is made up of at least fifty-percent tomato sauce. You have no room whatsoever to talk to me about culture, babe.”

Samuel chuckles, turning around and lifting his hand to cup her face. “If you’re scared, we don’t have to go,” he genuinely tells her, not trying to tease. “But it’s fun. And easy. If I can do it, you definitely can.”

Carla’s face softens. She sighs a little in resignation before saying, “...fine.”

He grins and presses his lips to her forehead. The pair get their skates, stuffing their shoes and the hideous cat plushie into a locker for safekeeping before sitting down on a bench to lace up. He does his first, then kneels down to help Carla do hers properly; he deliberately ignores the way she’s smirking at him on his knees in front of her, although that just makes it deepen.

“I didn’t realize I was dating Javier Fernández,” she teases when he stands back up from tightening her laces, making him playfully roll his eyes. 

“You have to do it right or else you’ll roll your ankle.”

She tests the tightness, lifting her leg and rotating her foot around in the air. “I’m gonna be honest, I really didn’t think you’d have such a hard-on for skating.” He laughs. “You go often?”

“I used to, when I was younger. The rink’s always been cheap, so we would come here a lot.” He doesn’t specify who—Omar is a safe-enough topic; Nano is somewhat tense, though mostly neutral ground; but Christian is another thing altogether. He figures it’s best to keep the atmosphere light. “It’s like rollerblading.”

“Samuel, do I honestly look like someone who has ever done that?” 

“Even marchionesses rollerblade,” he says with a shrug, then huffs a laugh at the skeptical expression on her face, stressing again, “This is gonna be _fun,_ I promise. And whatever happened when you were seven is gonna be totally irrelevant, you’ll see.”

He extends a hand to help her up to her feet. She accepts it and slowly rises on shaky legs after two seconds of hesitation.

It takes only slightly longer than that for Samuel to figure out nothing monumental happened for Carla to never go ice skating again after that initial time when she was a child; she is just infinitely _bad_ at it.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she scolds when she stumbles for the fiftieth time despite the fact that they’re moving slower than a drugged turtle. Samuel steadies her around the waist and rolls his lips in an attempt to hide his smile, but honestly, she kinda looks so cute frowning like that, it only makes him want to laugh even more. 

“You’re doing great,” he says instead.

“I hate you,” she says, leveling him with a flat look—which proves to be the wrong thing to do, because that means she takes her eyes off of where they’ve been glued to her feet since they stepped onto the ice, _realizes_ it, then begins to lose her balance all over again.

Samuel actually does laugh now, he can’t help it. “No, you don’t,” he responds, skating around so that he’s standing before Carla, holding both of her hands out between them. “Don’t focus so much on your feet, okay? And don’t think too much about it.”

“‘Don’t think.’ That is _very_ easy for you to say.”

“You know, you’re kinda stressed right now, so I’m going to let all the insults slide.” 

She rolls her eyes a bit, but there’s a tiny smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. Still, she’s already back to staring at the ground. “Can’t we just stick really, really close to the wall?”

“The wall’s not as helpful as you’d think,” Samuel tells her. “Hey, just don’t look down. Look at me, alright?”

Carla nods, then lifts her head quickly, like she’s afraid anything will happen in the millisecond it takes for her to meet his eyes. Her hands are gripping his fingers so tight that it’s almost painful, but he doesn’t mind, and just smiles encouragingly at her. 

“There you go. Now let’s just—”

“Fucking hell, Samuel, not so fast!”

A laugh bubbles out of him. “I barely even sped up!”

“Still,” she looks like she wants to gesture around, but also doesn’t want to risk letting go of him, so she just widens her eyes, “You know, _gradually_.”

“Okay, okay.” He slowly inches backwards, more or less pulling her along with him. “Carla, you have to relax your legs a little.”

She glares at him.

“A _little,_ baby, please,” he says again, trying to keep his voice gentle, but unable to stop his amusement from coloring it. Her expression doesn’t shift, although he watches as the tension relaxes from her leg muscles minutely. He beams widely at her. “That’s it.”

She glances down at their skates, seems to remember that she isn’t supposed to, and flicks her eyes up to look at him again. “Shit, this was a _terrible_ idea.” 

“Nah. I only hate that I can’t take a picture of you right now and send it to the group chat.” He smiles innocently at her when she narrows her eyes at him.

“If I was brave enough to remove either of my hands right now, I’d flip you off. Or hit you.”

After around fifteen minutes of them progressively easing along the longer side of the rink, Carla does feel brave enough to allow Samuel to return to her side, at least. She’s got a death-grip on the one hand that she’s still holding and her other is outstretched in either an effort to balance herself or preemptively catch her fall or both, but she also hasn’t glanced down in a while now, and there’s almost no tremble in her legs. She’s even smiling ear-to-ear.

Samuel desperately wants to kiss her, but he figures that won’t be a good idea in the slightest, so he shows some restraint. Barely.

And then they finally get to the curve, which is precisely where everything pretty much goes to shit.

He’s not sure exactly how it happens. One moment, he’s attempting to coax Carla into turning and she’s actually doing well with it; the next, her skates are slipping out from under her and she’s rapidly tipping backwards with a terrified squeal. He tries to anchor her, but her momentum only pulls him down with her, and Samuel just barely manages to spin them around at the last second before his back is hitting the ice and Carla is landing on top of him.

He lies there for a second, the wind thoroughly knocked out of his lungs. It comes back at the same time Carla registers that he’d broken her fall, lifting her head. Her hair is a mess and she’s a little breathless and _fuck_ , she looks _beautiful_.

But still, he gasps, “Are you okay?” 

Carla stares at him in disbelief for a moment before letting out a loud laugh. “Only you would ask that after being the one who cracked his head open.”

It’s here where Samuel realizes that the back of his skull is actually throbbing somewhat. He gingerly moves his head, the small movement making him involuntarily wince.

She takes his face into her cold hands, worry replacing her humor as she looks him over. “Does it hurt?”

“Kind of,” he admits. 

Carla’s hands slide into his hair; it feels good, almost instantly dulling the pain. She hums. “Well, there’s no blood. Want me to help you sit up?”

He manages an affirmative noise, closing his eyes against the slight dizziness that swarms his vision as Carla sits back and pulls him up by the arms. Only when he feels her hand on his cheek again does he flutter them back open, finding her own green ones looking back at him as she smiles softly.

“Hi,” he murmurs.

“Hi.” Her smile widens, even as it turns apologetic. “I’m sorry about your head.”

“Totally worth it,” he replies, giving her a lazy grin. Carla cocks an eyebrow. “Admit it, you were having fun.”

She snickers, “Fine, it wasn’t completely horrible. But, Samuel?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m never doing that again.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. I think I’m going into early retirement.”

“So, we can stop?” He chuckles and nods. “Great. Although, unless you want to repeat that all over again, I think you should probably be the one to help me up now.”

“Good idea. Give me a sec.” 

A short while later, they’re collapsing onto the same bench they’d sat down to put their skates on. It’s silent for a beat before they glance at each other and abruptly burst out into laughter.

“Holy shit, you suck _so_ hard at that,” Samuel says between giggles.

“Hey, I told you there was a reason why I only went that one time. You’re the stubborn idiot who was being all cute and insistent.”

“Still, you could have warned me a little more.” They laugh again, then Samuel starts grinning as he briefly gets lost in thought. “I just realized, this means there’s finally something that I’m better than you at.”

She pats him on the arm. “I’ll let you have this one. You know, for your honor or whatever.” 

Carla starts taking off her skates. After a moment, Samuel snorts to himself, and at her curious look, says, “I was thinking—technically, there are other things that you ‘suck hard’ at.”

He twitches his eyebrows suggestively. She just stares at him.

Then, “Fuck, I think your brain got seriously screwed up back there,” she says on another laugh. “That was so horrible, I’m definitely not _sucking hard_ on anything tonight.”

“I think it would only be fair if you did, considering it’s your fault we even fell,” he jokes lightly.

She giggles, muttering into his ear as she stands up, “See, now I’m just thinking you’re not actually hurt at all, but only faking it so I’ll give you a blowjob.”

“Is it working?” He calls out as she walks away from him to get their things, laughing when she gives him the finger without looking back.

In spite of Samuel’s injury, they don’t immediately go home. Instead, they get slices of pizza from a nearby concession stand, where Carla somehow conjures up a plastic bag full of ice for his head. He only protests for half a second before succumbing in the face of the look she shoots him, gingerly pressing the pack to what he can already tell is a small bump forming beneath his hair. He still reaches for her fingers across the table they’re sitting at and squeezes, though; he can tell that she really does feel bad, and he just wants to reassure her that he’s okay. He’s definitely suffered worse.

Even so, when their legs are dangling one-hundred feet in the air several minutes later, Samuel can’t help but comment, “I’m pretty sure Ferris wheels and possible concussions do not go well together.”

He looks over the bar holding him, Carla, and the stuffed cat in place. A significant wave of vertigo washes over him as he sees all the twinkling lights and ant-sized people below, and then he’s _definitely_ sure they don’t go well together.

Carla pulls him back. “Just don’t look down,” she says in a funny voice, quoting his advice from earlier.

He scoffs, bumping her with his elbow. She grins and nestles against his arm, resting her forehead on his shoulder and looking across the view of the rest of the city laid out before them. 

“I can’t believe we’re actually here,” she murmurs after a few seconds of comfortable quiet.

Samuel doesn’t have to ask what she means. He doesn’t joke, either; just entwines their fingers together and smiles against the top of her head.

“Yeah, I know.”

This time last year, he was holed up in Guzmán’s grandparents' home, bloodied and missing, and Carla was wandering the school, broken and terrified. It seems like such a lifetime ago.

“I’m really glad we are, though,” he continues, and Carla tilts her head up and captures his lips in a slow, deep kiss, making Samuel dizzy all over again—but in a much better way. 

“Me too,” she replies, smiling, when they part.


	14. held in your garden gates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s unconventional, sure—everything about her and Samuel and what they have is—but that’s what you call dinner and a movie, right? A date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is an immediate continuation of the macaroni scene and largely an introspection into carla’s feelings for samuel that doesn’t really introspect anything at all. mostly, this was just an excuse to write them watching star wars as backstory to carla’s almost word for word quote of princess leia’s “aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” line, and then i barely included the star wars. it physically pains me to post something this short but i hope you guys like it anyway skdjdkdn. also, send prompts if you have them!!! i am in no way lacking for any but i need something to inspire me
> 
> rating: teen
> 
> additional warnings: vague spoilers for star wars i guess but then again not really, and also the movie has been out since like 1980, so

Samuel’s grinning boyishly when he pulls back and her eyes slowly drift open to look at him. He’s still braced over her and his face is still cupped in her hands, and she can’t help but notice that she’s holding him like he’s something precious. 

Her eyes immediately dart down to his lips as he licks them, putting her back on solid, less frightening ground. She fully expects him to bend back down and kiss her breathless again—and she’s far from complaining; while there is something inexplicably warm and fluttery in her chest at the notion of him sharing a meal he’d cooked with her, it’s _really_ horrible—but instead:

“Wanna watch a movie?”

Carla blinks, caught off-guard. “A movie?”

Her hands fall uselessly atop her own stomach as Samuel finally rights himself, nodding at her. “You know, it’s like a bunch of people captured on camera, acting out the plot of a story. There’s this really cool place called the cinema where you can watch them on a huge screen—”

He abruptly cuts off in a laugh as she kicks at his shoulder with her foot, clad only in a stocking. She playfully glowers at him. “Smartass.”

“—but we can also watch one here, on my laptop,” he finishes, resting her ankle on his shoulder and brushing his thumb above the bone. It’s more than a little distracting. She isn’t even sure he’s aware he’s doing it.

She takes a moment to observe him. His hair is a bit messy from the way her hands had been running through it, there’s a mostly faded mark on his cheek where she’d hit him with the pillow, and his lips are still slightly swollen and red. He looks just on the right side of debauched, a sight that should be normal to her, but no. They didn’t have sex, hadn’t even come close to it. All they did was _kiss._

It’s the first time they’ve kissed without it leading to something more, the first time they’ve kissed just for the sake of it. Of course, there’s that tug lingering in Carla’s belly telling her that she’s turned on, but for once, she doesn’t feel the urge to carry out on it. She doesn’t think she’s ever made out with a boy and just left it at that, not even with Polo.

The realization disarms her. And before _she’s_ aware she’s doing it, she’s telling Samuel, “Okay.”

He genuinely looks surprised by her answer for a moment, and she can’t help the amused look she gives him. He places her leg back down and leans forward again in one motion, giving her another kiss. It’s not nearly as deep as the one from before; in fact, he’s getting up to go get his computer just as quick as it happened, but it still makes her stomach flip, nonetheless. 

He comes back with his shitty laptop tucked underneath one arm and a stack of DVDs balanced in the other a few short minutes later. She wordlessly pushes their dishes aside to make room for him to place them down, settling back into the cushions with her knees drawn to her chest as he takes his seat beside her once more.

“I’m not sure what you like, so...” he says, shuffling through the movies. Carla’s eye catches on a few commonly themed ones in particular, and she teasingly twists her lips.

“Just because I’m a girl, I have to like this corny rom-com bullshit?” She asks, nodding at the copy of _A Walk to Remember_ staring up at her. 

“Well, I don’t know, I just got whatever,” he defends, blushing slightly. 

Carla huffs a laugh through her nose, picking up the well-worn case to inspect it. “Why do you even have this movie, Samuel?”

“It’s my _mom’s_ , okay?” Carla gives him a disbelieving look, chuckling when he snatches the DVD out of her hand in exasperation. “And it’s not corny or a comedy. It’s fucking sad.”

She nods sagely. “Sure.” 

She _has_ seen it, although she had sort of disinterestedly picked at her nails the whole time while Lu sat beside her, crying her eyes out. The whole cancer thing was definitely sad, Carla’s not completely heartless, but romance movies are just not her thing. 

He rolls his eyes at her teasing, and she grins as she turns to start looking at what else he brought out with him. A couple of old animated movies that he’s probably had since he was a kid—admittedly classics, but she’s not really in the mood to watch any of them. There’s some superhero stuff as well, which she isn’t even going to comment on, and a few horror choices that she’s also watched and actually likes, but she figures watching people get murdered on screen is something the both of them can do without. 

But then she gets to _Star Wars_ , off-handedly commenting without any real intention of watching it, “Are you one of those guys who’s going to act like the world is ending when I say I’ve never seen this before?”

“I think that would require me actually expecting you to like sci-fi,” he snorts. 

“You have all these preconceived notions about me, you know. I’m starting to think you might be sexist.”

Samuel raises his eyebrows at her in disbelief. “Okay, so you’re into science fiction?”

“I could be.” He’s still just smiling at her, so she narrows her eyes and waves her hand. “Just put the fucking movie in.”

He does what he’s told, settling himself in the opposite corner of the couch afterwards. As the movie starts, Carla refrains from asking if the director really expects anyone to read the giant block of yellow text that begins scrolling on the screen, trying to give the film a chance, at least for Samuel’s sake.

And shitty eighties special effects aside, it’s not all that bad. _Star Wars_ is so ingrained in pop culture that Carla’s been naturally biased towards Princess Leia since she first learned what feminism was, and there is admittedly something about young Harrison Ford. Nonetheless, she finds herself seriously struggling to concentrate on what’s happening about half an hour in.

She doesn’t know how or when it happened, but at some point, her feet have found their way into Samuel’s lap, crossed at the ankle and resting atop his thighs. He’s got one hand on her shin, and he’s doing that _thing_ with his thumb again on her ankle. Her eyes immediately cut away from another outer space explosion and over to him, but Samuel’s staring at the laptop’s display with nothing short of dorky, teenaged boy awe on his face. Again, he doesn’t realize what he’s doing. Almost like this is _normal._

This is very much not normal. It’s not normal how this completely innocent touch is making her feel like she’s swallowed a whole migratory cloud of butterflies, and it’s not normal how she’s sitting here on a Saturday night watching cult classics with _Samuel García,_ of all people. She should be at the club with Lu, not even pretending to enjoy herself before leaving early. At the very least, she should be hooking up with Samuel under the same pretense why they started this whole thing: to shut him up. 

Instead, she’s on what undeniably is a _date._ It’s unconventional, sure—everything about her and Samuel and what they have is—but that’s what you call dinner and a movie, right? A date. 

She finds herself asking the very same question he’d asked her. _What are they doing?_ Moreover, what is _she_ doing and what had she been thinking when she came over here tonight?

There’s just… something about Samuel. Something she can’t explain to another person, let alone wrap her own mind around. He’s supposed to be a giant source of worry for her, one more thing for her to keep in check, but as of late, he’s just been the _one thing_ keeping her sane. The irony isn’t even remotely lost on her. She doesn’t think it’s lost on Samuel either, because sometimes he looks at her curiously, like he’s trying to decipher something else other than who killed Marina and what Carla has to do with it. 

She wonders if she’s his own little reprieve too, and if it’s as confusing to him as it is to her. 

Samuel turns his head, twitching his eyebrows at her in accusation. “You’re not even paying attention.”

“I am,” she lies, then frowns a little instinctively because it’s obvious that she wasn’t. “You’re just distracting me.”

To take the attention off of her, she flexes her foot against his lap in a move that makes him gasp and shy his hips backwards. She still isn’t actually trying to initiate anything with him though, despite her brain and body’s warning signs telling her that she should, and goes against them entirely by allowing Samuel to pull her to him. Naturally, he lifts his arm for her, and naturally, she leans into his chest and silently breathes him in.

“Is this better?” He asks lowly.

He smells like detergent and cologne and pasta and _Samuel._ She can’t help but wonder, when was the last time she was touched without it being for some ulterior motive?

 _It’s worse,_ she thinks, even as she nods in response. 

She forces herself to focus on the movie and nothing else—not Samuel’s solid heartbeat, or how he reaches over for a blanket that he drapes over the two of them, or her own stupid imagination picturing future Saturday nights spent like this, and maybe Friday and Sunday ones too; perhaps even weekdays. Before she knows it, the credits are rolling and his voice is rumbling beneath her ear. 

“So, what’d you think?”

“I mean, I’m not about to go to one of those conventions or anything, but it wasn’t completely horrible.”

Samuel snorts. “Very high praise, coming from you.” She bumps him with her shoulder. He laughs a bit, dimples poking out at her. “The second one is the best.”

He says it neutrally, but almost too neutrally, and Carla pulls back just enough to search his eyes. “When’s your mom coming home?”

“Not until the morning.”

Maybe the thing about Samuel, at least part of it, is that he understands. He understands what it’s like to be lonely—possibly the only person who gets it as much as she does, really. 

“Then put the next one in,” she tells him.

It _is_ more interesting than the first, and her general aversion to romance as a genre aside, she’s a little invested in Han and Leia’s relationship. Invested enough to stick around for the third film when they’re done with the second, at least, even though it’s already late and she definitely should be getting home.

That notion is only cemented further when Luke sees a bunch of holographic ghosts while everyone is celebrating winning a twenty year-long war, and Carla is only met with complete silence after she asks, “Were you never going to mention that Anakin was hot?”

She moves her head on Samuel’s chest so that she can see him, and sure enough, he’s fast asleep. His elbow is propped up on the arm of the couch, his palm squishing his face a bit. Carla watches him for a moment, a small, involuntary smile on her lips, and fights the urge to lean up and kiss the corner of his parted mouth.

Right. She needs to go. Slowly, she inches out from underneath the blanket, careful not to wake him, and resituates it around his shoulders so that he’s covered better without even thinking about it. She quietly shuts his laptop before tiptoeing around the room, gathering her phone, jacket, and purse. She’s just slipping into her shoes by the door when one of the floorboards creaks beneath her feet, making Samuel shift and mumble.

However, when Carla looks at him like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t, he’s still sleeping. But suddenly, the urgency to leave is gone, and the want to _stay_ is completely overwhelming.

There are so many lines that she’s not only crossed tonight, but outright leapt over. Going home is the smartest option for her, at the moment. If she wants to avoid making things even more complicated than they already are, all she needs to do is turn right and open the door. 

Carla chews her lip. 

Then she kicks off her shoes again, walks back over to Samuel, and smooths her fingers through his hair until his eyes crack open to sleepy slits. 

She’s already crossed so many lines tonight, what’s one more?

“Hey,” she whispers, far too gentle. “Let’s go to bed.”


	15. cosmic love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s ten thirty-nine on a Thursday night, four days before Christmas, and the last person Carla expects to see in the entire world is _him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating: mature
> 
> additional warnings: non explicit sex
> 
> here is a reunion fic with a christmas time twist! i realized about 3k words in that it bore some similarity to two fics written by lavenderss, so partial credit to her lol. the title is taken from the song by florence and the machine!! lastly, merry christmas if you celebrate it <3 if you don’t or christmas is already over then you have my love anywayyy

It’s ten thirty-nine on a Thursday night, four days before Christmas, and the last person Carla expects to see in the entire world is _him._

“Never thought I’d ever find a marchioness in a place like this.”

The voice does not belong to Samuel. No, if Samuel were the one who walks up to her in this somewhat shitty bar in Downtown L.A., it would be earth-shattering, time-stopping, heart-racing… but not necessarily surprising. She and Samuel always had that sort of serendipitous thing between them—spending a whole semester of school barely paying any attention to one another, skimming the outskirts of each other’s orbits like asteroids in outer space, only to crash together in an explosion that could rival the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. 

At least, that’s what Carla tells herself after all this time. Even six years later she’s still thinking about him, seeing him in everything, despite the fact that she hasn’t _actually_ seen him since she left Madrid. She’s staring at the whiskey resting on the coaster in front of her and comparing the woodsy color to his eyes when that voice prompts her to look up, head swiveling where her chin is propped in her hand, and immediately, her own eyes widen. 

Because the last person she expects to see in the entire world is not Samuel, but his brother, and that’s exactly who is standing just a mere foot away from the corner high-table she’s sitting at right now. 

“Do you mind if I sit?” Nano asks her.

There’s a smile on his lips; a small thing, one side of his mouth pressed together, the other curled up slightly, but still, she doesn’t know what to make of it. What are his intentions? The last time they saw each other, he’d put his hands on her, more or less threatened to kill her, and then she watched as Samuel nearly killed _him_ to protect her. 

She wonders if Nano’s here to finish the job. It’s been over half a decade, but the Nano García she remembers holds grudges. Not that she can or would blame him for holding one against her, though it also isn’t like she actively _wants_ to be the victim of a revenge crime now, or ever. 

There’s already a beer in his hand. That, for some reason, eases some of the tension in Carla’s shoulders. But only a little; only enough for her to give him a stiff, single shake of her head. 

He slips onto the stool across from her, stares pensively at his sweating beer bottle, and then looks around as if he’s taking the place in. His eyes eventually land on her own drink, and he nods his head at it.

“I would’ve figured you for a wine girl. You know, because...” 

He trails off, probably realizing that the two of _them_ making small talk in a low-dive bar in Los Angeles is absolutely fucking ridiculous. Or, perhaps, he just sees the way Carla’s hand tightens around the glass tumbler in anticipation of whatever the hell is happening, because he sighs a little through his nose, and fixes his eyes on her. 

They’re blue, like the polluted water of the ocean just a mere ten minute walk away from her home, not woodsy, whiskey, _Samuel_ brown. She never thought she’d ever feel so relieved about the fact that he and Nano, despite being fully related, almost look nothing alike. 

“Listen, mar—Carla,” he ditches that old, condescending nickname at the last second. It only serves to confuse her further. If he was actually here to confront her, it would make sense; it would be a long time coming. But, “I’m not here to start anything with you, okay?”

Finally, Carla seems to find her voice. “Why are you here, then?”

He shrugs a little with both his shoulders and mouth, and idly rotates his beer around in the condensation ring it’s formed on the tabletop. “Well, to have a drink. I work in this neighborhood, I just got off. I wasn’t exactly prepared for the fact that I’d be running into you tonight.”

“Yeah,” she can’t help but huff in agreement. “You could have turned around and left.”

“I didn’t want to.” He looks at her again. There’s no anger there, no traces of the passion she’s used to on him; he just looks weary. “I wanted to apologize.”

Carla actually wants to laugh. As it stands, all she can do is stare at him, completely in shock.

“I’m sorry. When I attacked you, I…” Nano shakes his head and pushes the beer aside. “I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I know that doesn’t excuse it, but I am sorry.”

She takes a sip of her whiskey. He’d been right; she despises the taste. But she’d ordered it more for how it looks, and less how it sits on her tongue. 

Several silent moments pass.

Then, “I’m sorry, too,” she says lowly, her own weariness creeping up on her now. 

“I know.” Abruptly, her eyes dart to him. “It took me a while to realize it. Years. But it only really hit me when I saw you sitting here, alone.”

She presses her lips together, unsure of what to say to that. Nano stares off at some random point above her shoulder, lost in thought, before he huffs a bittersweet chuckle. 

“I’ve spent so much time obsessing over what happened, dissecting what made everything go to shit, and the truth is, there’s not just one thing. Marina and I… we were fucked from the start. My choices got us to where we are as much as hers or yours.” His eyes are a little brighter than before. There are tears in them, she realizes. “I forgave you a long time ago.”

When Carla grips her glass now, it’s because her hands are shaking and she doesn’t want him to see it.

There’s a basketball game playing on the TV mounted on the wall. She’s never particularly cared about sports, so she has no idea if it’s an old rerun or what, if the sport is even in season, but there’s a group of men in the opposite corner she and Nano are sitting in watching it. They’re getting noisier and drunker with each second.

Carla barely hears any of it in the ensuing minutes that pass.

“Do you miss her?” 

The words are out before she even makes the executive decision to utter them. Nano smiles, and not that pathetic half-thing he’d been offering her earlier, but something sincere and loving and real. 

“Every damn day.” 

Carla nods. “Me too,” she says, even though she feels like she shouldn’t be allowed to.

A few more seconds go by. Nano asks, “So. What are _you_ doing here?”

There’s a long answer. There’s, _this time of year is when my loneliness is at its worst. This time of year, my apartment seems quieter and colder than normal. This time of year, I miss my parents, even though I know I shouldn’t. This time of year, like every other time, I cannot get your brother out of my fucking head for the life of me._

“I hate the holidays,” is the short one, and also the one she tells him.

She doesn’t elaborate. Maybe she doesn’t have to, because Nano huffs a sound that might be a laugh, but also might be one of understanding. 

The quiet lapses they keep slipping into aren’t comfortable, but they’re not exactly tense, either. It’s like sitting on a public bench next to a stranger. You’re both aware of each other’s presence, maybe even _hyper_ aware, but it isn’t stifling. Still, she and Nano are not the sort of strangers that can chat idly about their lives or ask how their day is going. They have too many elephants, or maybe skeletons, between them for that. 

Speaking of.

“How is he?” She asks, voice far too timid for her liking, as she stares into the liquid of her glass.

Perhaps it’s a stupid question. He and Samuel hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, either; he may have even gone longer without seeing Samuel than she has. 

She can feel Nano’s eyes on the top of her head, calculating. 

“He’s doing good. Better now,” he eventually says. “He saved up all his money his last year of high school and went on a solo trip around Europe after graduation. When he got back, he enrolled into university. Got a degree in social work.”

It’s the first bit of information she’s learned about Samuel in six years. She saw Guzmán once, two years ago, when she was visiting Lu in New York at the same time he was visiting Nadia. Things had been cordial, maybe even akin to normal; all four of them pretty set on not revisiting the past. She knows Guzmán and Samuel kept in touch, are even close friends still, but she couldn’t bring herself to just ask about him. 

Social work, though. She can picture it clearly: Samuel stepping in to help families and children in need, lending a hand, shining a light. Working around the local authorities. It suits him completely. 

“And… he’s happy?” That’s all she’s ever wanted. 

Nano doesn’t answer, at least long enough for Carla to look up at him expectantly. He’s just gazing back at her, eyes ticking between either of her own.

Then, he pulls a pen out from the inner pocket of his beat-up jacket. With his other hand, he reaches forward, removes her whiskey, and slides the coaster it’d been resting on over to himself.

She watches as he flips it and scribbles on the blank backside, her heart thumping madly in her chest. He pushes it back to her after a second, getting up from his seat.

“Happy holidays, Carla,” Nano says with a nod, and turns around. 

Carla watches him leave. When she can’t see him through the far window anymore, she finally swivels her gaze to the phone number staring up at her. 

It’s not unusual for her to be offered a guy’s number when she goes to a bar. Realistically, she expected at least one tonight. 

She just didn’t think it would be Samuel’s. 

*

After another half an hour, she goes home. The whiskey gets knocked back, and the coaster gets slipped into her purse. 

However, Samuel’s new number isn’t the one she sends a text to when she’s lying in bed at one a.m., mind racing. 

_Are you awake?_

She places her phone face-down on her chest and stares up at the ceiling, waiting. If she doesn’t get a response within the next ten minutes, she’ll resign herself to a sleepless night. If she _does_ —

Her phone rings just after the one-minute mark. She slides her thumb across the screen and raises it to her ear.

“You do realize time zones are a thing, right? It’s four in the morning.” Lu’s voice is cranky and irritated, and also mostly just for posterity, because it suddenly softens as she adds, “Are you okay? What happened?”

She probably thinks Carla had a nightmare. It used to be a regularly occurring thing between them in the aftermath of leaving Spain, calling the other in the dead of night whenever they woke up gasping and drenched in sweat. Sometimes, even now, it still is. And Lu has Nadia, sure; but Carla and Lu are the only ones who well and truly understand what it’s like to feel _haunted_. 

Right now, though, Carla only feels a confusing cocktail of uncertainty, nervousness… and hope.

But mostly uncertainty.

“I’m fine. I—” She swallows and rolls her lips. “I ran into Nano tonight.”

There’s a pause. “Excuse me?”

“Nano. Nano García.”

“I know. Shit. Did he do anything to you? What happened?” She repeats.

“It kind of happened very fast, and also very, very slowly,” Carla says into the quietness of her bedroom. She knows that doesn’t really make sense, but it’s the truth. “I was in a bar and he walked in by chance. And he… apologized to me.”

“For what?”

“For that night he attacked me,” Carla answers. “And I apologized to him, too. For… you know.”

“Yeah,” Lu exhales. “God, honey, that’s heavy. How are you doing? You should have called me sooner.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been...”

“I get it,” Lu gently cuts in; understanding. “What is he even doing in L.A., anyway? Last I heard, Guzmán said he was back in Madrid, but that was a while ago. Do you think he’s been living out there this whole time?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” Carla drums her fingers on the flat of her stomach, suddenly restless. She can’t keep it in anymore. “He gave me Samuel’s number.”

Now there’s an even longer pause than before. Then, “Did you _ask_ for Samuel’s number?”

“No, I only asked how he was doing. I couldn’t help myself. He just gave it to me and left.” Carla picks at her comforter and whispers, “Lu, I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you _want_ to do?” Her friend asks in a soft voice. 

Everything. Nothing. There’s a reason why she left Madrid, but there’s also a reason why she’s always been unable to _never look back._

“I miss him,” she admits quietly, even though she doesn’t really need to. Lu already knows. One time, when Lu was visiting her for spring break, they got absolutely wasted on pink champagne and Carla told her that she’s pretty sure Samuel is the love of her life, so of course, Lu knows. “I’ve missed him for so long.”

“Then text him, love,” Lu says, just as low. Carla really wishes that she weren’t on the other side of the country right now—it may not be in the same way, but she misses her, too.

“It’s just… _fuck._ ” Carla sits up, leaning back on her headboard and curling her knees against her chest so tightly that it almost hurts. “None of this makes any fucking sense.”

Not her meeting Nano again, not him giving her the phone number, not this happening after so many years. _None of it._

“Nothing about the two of you ever made sense to me, if we’re being honest,” Lu says plainly, but not without a touch of humor. 

Carla smiles, but it’s tiny, and flickers almost instantly. “Yeah, me neither,” she murmurs.

“He made you happy, though.” 

It’s not a question. Despite that, and despite how Lu is currently thousands of miles away from her and therefore can’t see her, Carla nods her head. 

After a moment, Lu asks, “You’ve never told me whether or not you regret leaving Spain.”

She knows that leaving had been the best thing for both her _and_ Samuel. “No. I don’t.”

Lu hums, almost sleepily so. “But you will regret not getting in touch with him now that you’ve been given the chance to,” she says, repeating a second later, “Text him, Carla. You know I’m right.”

In Carla’s experience, she almost always is.

*

Lu, having reverted back to her normal blunt, persistent self, is less tender about it in the morning. Carla puts her phone on do not disturb, abandons it on her coffee table, and spring cleans her entire apartment even though it’s winter and her place is usually so clean you could eat directly off of the black walnut floor. 

She does it to procrastinate, obviously, but she’s also desperately trying to keep her mind off of things. It doesn’t really work, though—as she’s hunched over her kitchen sink, scrubbing at the corners with an old toothbrush, her thoughts start to wander.

There has to be some sort of catch, right? Perhaps Nano is trying to get back at her after all, in whatever way giving her Samuel’s number may accomplish; maybe he just wants to watch her heart get broken when she calls Samuel only to find out that he’s married already and has a kid on the way or something. She’s probably giving Nano too much credit, and she does have to admit that he seemed… honest. _Changed,_ rather, but…

The universe isn’t exactly her biggest fan, and this seems way too good to be true. Or, at least, not malicious in intent. 

But still, she’s aware that Lu is right. If she doesn’t get in contact with Samuel, she’s just going to spend the rest of her life thinking about the _what if._ She knows what’s possibly scaring her the most is her lack of control over the situation, despite the fact that the fate of it quite literally rests in her own hands—or purse, since she still hasn’t brought herself to take the coaster out of it yet. There’s just no anticipating what can happen and it’s stressing her out, but maybe, if anything, she can get some closure. 

Anything else, anything _more,_ she isn’t brave enough to hope for.

The toothbrush clanks into the sink’s basin as she tears her gloves off with a muttered swear and stalks over to where she’d left her purse in one of the seats at her breakfast counter. She takes the coaster out, slapping it down onto the counter top and staring at it, gnawing on her lower lip. 

What the fuck is she even supposed to say? _Hey, I know it’s been six years, but it’s Carla._ That just sounds stupid, and also slightly pathetic. _What’s up? It’s Carla._ Too casual, and not her style, besides the fact. _Hi, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you._ That’s _definitely_ pathetic, and way too much of the truth. 

Fuck it. She swipes the coaster back up again and goes to grab her phone, sinking onto her white couch. Her fingers are shaking somewhat as she types his number into the new message bar. 

_Hey. I ran into your brother yesterday and he gave me your number. It’s been a long time. How are you?_

She presses send. Then she curses again as she realizes she didn’t say who she was, quickly adding, _it’s Carla, by the way._

As she waits for his response, she goes through all of her other notifications that she missed throughout the day. Lu stopped trying to reach her early on, the last text she sent Carla simply reading, _tell me how it goes, dear._ There are a few business emails she reads and replies to. She scrolls Instagram. She goes online shopping, puts a Coach coat that she really doesn’t need in her cart, when—

 _Hey, yeah, he told me. I was really hoping to hear from you._ She momentarily stops reading to allow her heartbeat a chance to recover. _I’ve been good. Busy, but no complaints. What about you?_

Carla taps her finger on the side of her phone, unsure of how to reply. It’s not because she’s lacking for an answer, but because making small talk with Samuel is somehow even weirder than making it with his brother. What she sends— _that’s great. I’ve been okay, too_ —seems so lackluster for the both of them. 

She’s just about to send something else when her phone chimes again. 

_I’m happy L.A.’s been treating you well. I’m actually flying into town tomorrow to spend Christmas with Nano. Do you wanna meet up? Dinner, maybe?_

Carla can feel her heart pounding in her ears now. Maybe _this_ is Nano’s one small revenge against her, then—electing to not mention the fact that Samuel’s coming. Here. To Los Angeles. _Samuel is coming to Los Angeles._

For a very long moment, she just stares at the screen. She knows a text message isn’t exactly indicative of how the other person is feeling, but she can’t shake the notion that Samuel is uncharacteristically handling this way better than she is. 

But then, in quick succession:

_I mean, if you’re free._

_I know it’s last minute._

_Sorry. You probably already have plans._

A soft, unbidden laugh escapes her lips. She can picture perfectly how he must look right now, hair sticking up because he has a tendency to run his hands through it when he’s nervous. She always used to find it amusing, although mostly, she just thought it was cute.

Jesus.

 _No plans,_ she replies, his anxiousness ironically making her feel like she’s back on solid ground. _Dinner sounds great._

She types _with you_ between “dinner” and “sounds”, but ultimately decides against it.

The three dots appear, rapidly disappear, then show up again. She wonders if he’d been trying to decide if the first word of his response had sounded lame—it does, but it’s also kind of endearing, and it just makes her smile ear-to-ear.

 _Awesome._ _My flight comes in at eleven a.m., so I’m pretty much free whenever in the evening._

 _Seven?_ Carla texts back.

_Seven is perfect._

_I’ll find a place and text you the address later,_ she tells him. _Any special requests?_

_No. I trust you._

She feels like a whole bee colony has made a hive out of her insides, fluttery and gooey and _buzzing._

_Okay. Tomorrow then._

_Sounds good,_ he replies.

It seems final, so Carla prepares to set her phone down and—do something. She should probably find a restaurant and book a reservation as soon as possible, but she’s feeling incredibly antsy. 

Her phone chimes again.

 _I can’t wait to see you, Carla,_ the new text says.

Carla doesn’t directly reply to that, but she doesn’t stop thinking about it as she sends him the details for an Italian restaurant that’s open year-round near her house ten minutes later, as she goes back to cleaning, as she fills Lu in, or as she lies in her bed that night and tries to force herself to go to sleep. 

She also doesn’t stop smiling.

*

In an effort to curb the pitfall feeling in her stomach, Carla wakes up the next day as if nothing is out of the ordinary. She goes on a run along the boardwalk and makes herself a breakfast consisting of toast, eggs, and fruit when she gets home. After that, she takes a shower. She even spends the afternoon handling a few things for the wineries from her home office.

It’s only when she has a few hours left before she’s supposed to meet Samuel that she really starts freaking out. So, around four o’clock, she decides to get ready. 

She gets dressed on her own, because Lu’s commentary on every potential outfit she tries on will only make her even more stressed than she already is. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t criticize them herself though, standing in front of the long mirror propped up in the corner of her bedroom and huffing in frustration whenever she finds a flaw with what she’s wearing. 

She doesn’t even particularly like wearing jeans on a normal day, so those are almost immediately axed, even though they really do make her ass look good. She goes through about five different dresses before she figures that a dress seems too… well, _dressy._ It’s Samuel, and no matter how much time has gone by, she’s under no impression that he’s going to show up tonight in a nice button-up and dress pants. Besides, the restaurant isn’t fancy or anything. She’s not trying to upstage anyone.

Eventually, she decides on a tight-fitting white turtleneck, and because it’s still not bitingly cold in Southern California this time of year, she pairs it with a silver skirt. It _is_ still winter though, so she sets aside a pink leather jacket as she settles down at her vanity to put on her makeup.

“Smart choice. Red’s always been your color,” Lu says when Carla finally FaceTimes her afterwards, nodding at the shade of Carla’s lipstick she’d swiped on a few minutes ago. The brunette’s lips twist in a smirk. “It’s also a date color.”

Carla feels a little notch form between her eyebrows even as her stomach flips. “Please. It’s not a date.”

“It’s not _just dinner,_ either,” Lu says, rolling her eyes. 

“We’re just… catching up,” Carla mutters, still frowning; albeit, mostly to herself. She sucks in a short breath and looks at her phone’s screen again. “I don’t even know if he’s single. He could be seeing somebody.”

“Hm. Well, I could ask Nadia.”

“No,” Carla says quicker than she means to, composing herself almost immediately. “No, that’s not necessary.”

“Good, because she’s not here right now, anyway.” Lu’s expression softens. “He wouldn’t have asked you to dinner if he was currently seeing someone, Carla.”

“What makes you so sure about that?”

“Because ‘catching up’ is something that friends do. Usually over brunch, or at the most, drinks. Not a one-on-one dinner,” Lu says matter-of-factly. “And on Christmas Eve, too.”

Carla mulls that over before slumping in her seat and pinching her nose. “Shit. I hate that he makes me this fucking unsure of myself.”

“Except that you don’t,” Lu replies knowingly. “It’s called being in love, darling.”

“I feel ridiculous, Lu,” Carla mutters quietly. “I feel _stupid_ for not having moved on, and I’m really, really scared to find out if I’m the only one who hasn’t.”

“Carla,” her friend just says. 

“I put him through so much that last year at Las Encinas,” Carla continues. “He never even knew if I felt the same way for him. I practically _forced_ him to move on.”

She thought that she’d be okay with just getting closure from tonight, but she’s pretty sure finding out that Samuel actually has settled down with another girl will only accomplish the exact opposite of that. It’ll blow the wound wide open. 

“You forget that I was a witness to the two of you that entire year. Carla, whatever pain you inflicted on him, he just kept coming right back for more.” When she sees that she isn’t exactly convincing Carla, Lu goes on, “I’ve never experienced that type of love, so I can’t honestly tell you what’s going to happen. But the way you two loved each other? You don’t just stop caring for someone like that, and Samuel… well, he’s always cared about everything. A little too fucking much, if you ask me.”

That gets a quiet laugh out of Carla. She smiles, feeling a bit more at ease. “Thanks, Lu.”

“Of course. That’s what best friends are for, no? To smack sense into each other.”

It’s moments like this where Carla wonders how differently everything would be now if she would’ve opened up to Lu far sooner, although she doesn’t let herself dwell on it too much as she checks the time and realizes her and Samuel’s reservation is in half an hour. It’s probably too early to head out considering the commute between her apartment and the restaurant in Venice is only six minutes by car, but she’s nervous, so whatever. 

And it doesn’t matter much anyway, because Samuel is already waiting near the restaurant’s entrance when her cab drops her off just a little ways down the street. 

Carla is immediately rooted to the spot when she catches sight of him as she’s climbing out of the backseat, so much so that the door knocks against her hand as the taxi driver pulls back onto the street. She doesn’t even so much as blink. For a moment, in spite of the last twenty-four hours, she almost can’t believe he’s actually here. She’s seeing him with her own two eyes, and not through the low-quality profile picture on his Instagram or whatever rare photos Guzmán and Ander post and tag him in, because all he posts are scenic shots of the city and glimpses of his sketches. She’s seeing him in person. 

His hair is shorter in the front now, waves curling against his forehead. He has stubble. He looks older, broader. 

He looks _good._

Her eyes roam all over him, intent on committing every single detail to memory. She’d been partially wrong, he _is_ wearing a button-down, light blue in color, but he’s paired it with a pair of dark jeans and a black denim jacket. It’s not too casual or too over-the-top. It’s very Samuel. A more defined Samuel, even if the way he keeps shifting his weight and drumming his fingers on his thigh is anything but. He hasn’t noticed her yet. 

She wishes she could say that the only reason she finally decides to approach him is because she takes pity on him, but the truth is, she’s pretty sure she could stand here for hours on end just staring. As it is, she kind of doesn’t want to risk the humiliation of being _caught_ staring by him, nor does she want to get clipped by a car. She’s on the sidewalk, but she’s standing dangerously close to the edge of the curb. 

Her legs feel like they’re made of jelly as they carry her over. Samuel’s face lights up in that dimpled smile of his as he finally spots her, and her insides turn to jelly too. 

“Hey. You’re early,” he greets, pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against as she walks up to him. He looks unsure of what to do, like he doesn’t know if he should wave or shake her hand like they’re meeting for business or something.

Again, Carla wishes she could say it’s because she’s pitying him, but her motives behind leaning in and wrapping him in a one-armed hug is purely selfish.

The hug is brief, just a simple form of greeting, but she can’t help but think it lasts forever at the same time. He’s warm and solid, and he smells the same. No, his cologne is different, but—it’s just the _same._

She hopes he can’t feel how her heart is absolutely pounding in her chest. 

“You’re earlier,” she points out when they pull back, and Samuel just nods shyly and shrugs. 

“I’ve heard things about L.A. traffic. I might have overestimated just a little,” he explains. She wonders if the truth coincides with more of her own: that he was restless and couldn’t stand waiting around for a second longer. “You look great.”

“You do, too.” Her voice is even despite how she wants to tremble as his eyes look her over.

He smiles again. “Should we see if we can be seated early?”

The place isn’t as busy as Carla expected, given that it’s the day before Christmas. They only have to wait for their table to be cleaned and cleared before the smiling hostess leads them over to it. It’s small enough that Carla could reach over and touch his hand where it’s resting on the tablecloth. She _wants_ to touch him again. 

“So,” Samuel starts once they’ve ordered their drinks, “have you been in Los Angeles this whole time?”

“Not _Los Angeles,_ but California, yeah. After graduation, I studied business at Stanford. It’s up north more.” Samuel nods along interestedly. “Your brother told me you’re a social worker now.”

“Yeah. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but... I don’t know. There's still a lot of bureaucracy, and the thought of taking money from families like mine didn’t feel right. I mean, I could do pro-bono the whole time, but I still have to eat.”

Carla huffs a laugh. “I think it fits you,” she tells him. “He also said you went on a trip around Europe?”

It’s brief, so quick that Carla thinks she may be imagining it, but something unreadable flashes in Samuel’s eyes. “For the summer, by train. I just needed to figure some stuff out about myself after Las Encinas.”

“I get that,” Carla says a bit softly. “Did it work for you?”

“It helped. What about you?”

Carla places her chin in her hand and gives him a small smile. “I think I’m still getting there, honestly.”

Samuel nods again, understanding, before his face suddenly creases. “Speaking of, about Nano,” he starts. “He’s gotten way better over the last few years, really, but I hope he didn’t…”

He trails off, leaving her to fill in the blanks. Carla shakes her head. “No, it was—good. For the both of us.” She momentarily falls quiet as the hostess comes back with her white wine and his water. She doesn’t know why, but the water had made her smile, like he didn’t want to rely on alcohol to calm his nerves. When the woman leaves again, Carla continues, “I’m happy you and Nano have fixed things.”

Samuel lifts up his water and holds it out for her to toast. 

“Well, it’s never too late,” he says warmly, and she can’t help but think he isn’t just talking about his brother as she clinks her glass against his own.

They order their meals soon enough, and even though he’s probably heard some things from Guzmán or Omar, who are regularly in contact with Lu, he asks Carla about her. Carla knows what he _really_ means, though; she tries to keep her response honest but light, which really just means it’s sort of brief, mostly along the lines of _she’s doing really okay._ She and Samuel share understanding smiles before he begins to tell her about what everyone else back at home has been getting up to.

Carla listens attentively and genuinely, glad to hear that everybody else has been doing well for themselves, too. It’s only after he mentions Rebeka that something digs in Carla’s gut, and suddenly, she can’t help herself.

“Did you two ever… you know, after graduation?” She tries and succeeds to sound casual, because no matter what, she’s been good at that, but still. She can’t bring herself to actually say the words _get back together._

Samuel shakes his head. “Nah, that wasn’t…” He laughs a bit ruefully. “I hurt her. She deserved better than me.”

Something burns in Carla’s throat. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

“We’re good now, though. She’s like my taller sister who likes to bully me,” Samuel continues, thankfully moving them both past that topic. Carla laughs. “How about you? Anyone special in your life?”

He is _way_ worse than her at being nonchalant. She watches him stare studiously at some nonexistent spot on the tablecloth.

“Not for a while, no.”

“Oh.” She does have to give him credit, though; he schools his features incredibly quickly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Carla’s frowning, but she’s also smiling for some reason. “Why?”

“Because you deserve to be happy,” he says sincerely.

It makes her insides flutter. She regards him with her head still in her hand, long enough that color begins to creep up the skin of his neck. She deliberately keeps her face neutral, unreadable. “Who says I’m not happy on my own?”

It’s _definitely_ bullshit, and if Samuel wasn’t too busy reaching for a response, he’d be able to see that. Her face progressively creases with amusement, and it’s only then that his eyes snap to her, narrowing. 

“You’re screwing with me,” he notes, a smile slowly spreading across his lips.

Carla tilts her head, smirking into her wine glass. “Well, some things just don’t change.”

Such as the way they go back-and-forth until their food arrives like they used to in his apartment, joking and teasing and laughing. Such as Carla sitting here in a white sweater, eating pasta with Samuel and feeling something so impossibly warm in her sternum as her eyes roam over his dimpled face. 

“This is definitely better than my macaroni,” he’s saying, swallowing down a few bites of his penne alla vodka. 

Carla lifts her shoulder in a shrug, picking through her own mushroom ravioli. “I don’t know, I liked it.”

She lifts her eyes just in time to catch him giving her a flat look. “You said it was _disgusting._ ”

The memory of that particular conversation makes her feel uneasy, but Samuel’s eyes are sparkling a bit with humor, so she swallows the sensation down. 

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t love it,” she replies. Samuel’s expression shifts just slightly; not into something bad, but something… quiet. Carla presses her lips together, shrugging again, and continues talking before she has the right mind to stop herself. “I’d prefer a thousand of your reheated, salty meals over anything from a Michelin-star restaurant.”

Carla pauses as soon as it’s out, her ears burning like they’ve been set on fire. She tucks her hair behind one casually, raising her eyes to gauge Samuel’s reaction.

He looks thoughtful for a moment. Then he chuckles. “‘Salty’ is a step up from ‘disgusting’, at least. I’ll take it.”

“Still,” she idly goes on after a few seconds, “I’m pretty sure I can make better macaroni than you.”

“Oh, really?”

“I may have learned a thing or two in the kitchen.” Samuel’s still looking at her doubtfully, so she says, “I might be rich, but ordering takeout every night can be a bit much, even for me. And it’s more nutritious to prepare your own meals. Plus, I needed a hobby.”

“Well, now part of me wishes you would’ve cooked something for me.” It’s his time to hesitate, eyes widening. “I mean—”

Carla smiles.

She reaches across the miniature-sized table and covers his fingers with her own.

“Next time,” she says, then draws her hand back and smiles down at her food. When she glances at him in her peripheral, Samuel is doing the same.

What always made the least amount of sense about her and Samuel was how easy it was. And like she told him, some things just don’t change. 

*

It’s somewhat chillier once they step back outside two hours later. Then again, the shiver that crawls down Carla’s spine could just be from the dread of having to say goodbye to Samuel again, not necessarily because of the weather. 

But then he smiles crookedly and kind of _shyly_ at her, and asks, “You said you lived around here, right? Can I walk you home?”

“It’s a pretty long walk,” she replies, even though she made up her mind probably before he even had the question formulated on his tongue.

“My sole mode of transportation was a bike for most of my life,” Samuel says. “I think I’ll manage.”

It’s not _that_ long of a walk, but Carla does take them the long way. They follow the same route along Venice Beach’s boardwalk that she had run that morning, although most of the shops are shuttered and closed now because of the early holiday hours. Still, it’s nice. They mostly walk in comfortable silence, and the palm trees, buildings, and handrails are wrapped in colorful Christmas lights, casting a warm-colored glow over them.

What’s even warmer is the heat radiating off of Samuels’ body beside her. Every now and then their shoulders brush, sending electrical sparks tingling throughout Carla’s entire nervous system. Once, their hands knock together, and it takes everything in her not to curl her pinky around his own. 

The breeze picks up a little, and Carla takes a deep inhale of the briny air. “I’ve always loved the ocean.”

Without disrupting their relaxed pace, Samuel turns his head to look at her. “Yeah?”

Carla nods. “Whenever we went when I was a girl, I’d refuse to get out. It would practically take a hurricane to wash me onto the shore.” She gazes in the direction of the sea, the sound of the waves audible in her ears but invisible to her eyes because of how dark it is. “I don’t know, it was just peaceful out there.”

She abruptly looks down as she feels Samuel’s hand encircling her wrist, a small smile twisting on her lips while he wordlessly leads her onto the beach. 

“I haven’t seen the ocean often,” Samuel mutters a few minutes later when they’re sitting with their shoes lying next to them, toes in the sand. Carla watches him watch the blackened silhouette of the waves, her head resting on her bent knees. “Whenever I did, it used to scare the living shit out of me. But in that way that really beautiful things do, you know?”

Carla lifts her head and gazes forward without answering; she has a feeling that Samuel had mostly been talking rhetorically. Her fingers are gently tracing the sand at her side when he talks again. 

“It reminds me of you.”

She doesn’t look at him. “I scare you?”

“You make me unsure,” he corrects, and it’s—it’s exactly what she said to Lu just a few hours ago. Carla finally turns to regard him, finding him already looking back at her. For a moment, they just hold one another’s gaze. 

“How’s this like for you?” She asks him softly.

“This?”

“Seeing each other again,” she elaborates. 

Samuel blows out a long, slow breath, staring off in the distance. “It’s somehow exactly how I expected it to go and not at all. Does that make sense?”

It does. Still, she asks, “Are you disappointed?”

“Never.”

“But you have questions, don’t you?” About her, them, that last year at school, _everything._

He just chuckles, though; the sound is almost drowned out by the waves and the wind. “If there’s anyone with questions, it’s you at the moment.”

“Samuel.”

“Carla, it can wait,” he tells her, equal parts gentle and exasperated. “Right now, it’s just enough that we’re here.”

She gazes at him for a moment longer before letting out a sigh of her own. This time, when she rests her head back down, it’s on his shoulder. “Okay.”

His arm wraps around her, fingers curling over her elbow. For a second, Carla’s struck with the same feeling she used to get whenever she was eight years-old, floating on her back in the Mediterranean Sea. 

“I do have to confess something, though,” he murmurs. Carla angles her head to look at his profile. “The money I used to go on my Eurail trip... I originally saved it up to come see you.”

Carla blinks, eyes fixing themselves on the hinge of his jaw. She’s never held the fact that he didn’t visit her against him; it’s not like she expected him to be jumping at the opportunity given how she spent the last five months pushing him away.

“But then, like I said, I needed to figure some things out on my own. Rebe wasn’t the only one who deserved better, you know?” He says meaningfully. Carla wants to argue that _he’s_ the one who deserves better than _Carla_ ; she wants to tell him that she’s always felt that way, but he keeps talking before she can. “I also had no idea where you even were, so. I thought texting you after an entire year would just seem pathetic.”

“Oh, thanks,” Carla replies amusedly, eyebrows raised. “So does doing it six years later make me _worse_ than pathetic?”

Samuel actually giggles, that same boyish laugh she used to greedily coax out of him. “No, I think it just makes you a thousand times smarter than I am.”

She hums. “Well, yeah, we already knew that.”

He sucks his teeth and lightly pushes her off of him. Carla laughs as she braces her palm in the sand to keep from toppling over, and when she looks back at Samuel, he’s shaking his head in exasperation, but he’s also got a beaming smile on his face. 

“Rude,” she says, then promptly pours a handful of sand on top of his head. 

Samuel makes an indignant noise and tries to grab for her, but Carla laughingly darts up to her feet before he can. She runs toward the water, heedless of the fact that it’s winter and she’s probably risking pneumonia as it engulfs her bare feet. She squeals because it’s _freezing,_ and then she squeals again because Samuel suddenly catches her by the waist and twirls her around. 

They run along the shore, careless and free. Samuel rolls his jeans up to his calves and they wade a few feet in, limbs numb, hands anchored together; with nothing but the moon as their witness.

Just like how it used to be. 

“I like Los Angeles. I might even love it, honestly, but...” Carla trails off in a whisper, eyes on the distant, dark horizon. “But Madrid will always be my home.”

She can feel Samuel’s own eyes on the side of her face. “Think you’ll return someday?”

“Depends,” she answers, and they leave it at that. 

Eventually, they pick their way back onto the beach, collect their shoes and head to the boardwalk. It’s uncomfortable standing in heels with grains of wet sand sticking to the soles of her feet, but she also isn’t crazy enough to walk L.A. barefoot. She does walk with her elbow looped around Samuel’s though, listing into his side, and soon they’re standing in front of her apartment building in Marina del Rey.

Carla unravels herself from him, turning around so that they’re face-to-face. Samuel’s hands are in his pockets. She mentally curses Lu—it’s very reminiscent to the end of a first date right now, where you don’t know how to bid one another farewell. 

“This was nice,” Samuel starts, and it’s a wholly inappropriate understatement; his jeans are dirty and damp and there are still a few granules of sand dusting his hair, and besides that, it’s him and Carla, and nothing between them was ever so simple as _nice._ “It was really great seeing you ag—”

She kisses him.

Their lips mash together violently before it eases into something gentle, like a wave crashing onto the shore, and _Carla’s kissing him._

She pulls back, pulse hammering away, and can’t help how her tongue darts across her bottom lip to swipe up any lingering taste of him. She’s breathless as she searches his face with wide eyes. 

“Sorry, I just—”

Samuel takes her face into his hands and kisses her harder, deeper; with so much emotion that she’d sob if she could spare the air for it. As it is, she just clutches onto the lapels of his jacket like she’s going to fall right over the edge of a cliff—but then again, she already has. A long, long time ago, at that. 

“I’ve missed doing that for so long,” Samuel murmurs when they finally part again, words breathed over the tops of her closed eyelids, and Carla knows. She knows Lu had been right. 

Of course, she always is. 

Carla gradually opens her eyes and looks at him. Her lipstick is smudged on the corner of his mouth. It looks like pasta sauce. She leans in again, places a gentle kiss to it, then thumbs it away with a gentle smile. 

“Come up?” 

“Yeah. Yes. Of course.” Samuel nods his head, eager enough that she giggles quietly before slipping her hand into his and leading him inside.

They don’t rush up the stairs. They don’t really talk, either, but Carla can’t stop smiling. She’s smiling as they finally reach her floor, she’s smiling as she slips her key into the knob, Samuel standing patiently behind her; and she’s smiling as she turns around when they’re finally inside and he tenderly slants his lips over hers again. 

She vaguely registers the door getting shut and her keys getting tossed onto the counter, her leather jacket falling to the floor. She explicitly remembers the burn of Samuel’s hands on her bare arms, her back hitting her mattress; the feel of him finally inside of her when he lines himself up at her entrances and slides in. 

In her lower points, when she would lie awake at night and feed into her hopeless wants and wishes, Carla always figured that whenever she and Samuel had sex again, it would be more intense than any other time combined. And it _is—_ there are tears at the corner of her eyes, and she’s clutching at him as if she’s afraid he’s going to disappear, and her moans and gasps have a sob-like tremble in them—but she thought it would be intense the way a nuclear strike is.

Right now, they move like they’re underwater, and it’s almost too much. She comes fast, and again when he follows after her several minutes later. 

When her mind finally rejoins her, Carla lets out a hysterical little laugh. 

Samuel’s head turns over on the pillow in surprise. “I couldn’t have been that bad, right?” He’s chuckling a bit too, but she can also detect a hint of self-consciousness underneath the amused tone. “After all these years, I think I would have improved, not gotten worse.”

Carla covers her face with her hands and shakes her head, shoulders still shaking with laughter. “No, that was amazing, it’s just—I don’t know why I expected the night to end in any other way than this.”

She senses Samuel fully shift over so that he’s lying on his side, facing her. He starts tracing his fingers along her stomach, between the valley of her breasts. “Did you want it to end differently?” 

Carla shivers beneath his touch and drops her arms, watching him with a quiet smile on her face. “Of course not,” she utters gently.

Samuel locks eyes with her for a beat before moving that hand upwards and cupping her jaw, turning her face to him so that he can capture her lips once more. Slowly, tenderly, softly. 

“Will you spend tomorrow with me?” He asks into the miniscule gap between their noses.

There’s so many things she can and _needs_ to tell him. They need to talk about Yeray, her father. She needs to tell him that she has been in love with him since she was seventeen years old, and that’s something that will never change. 

But, later. 

For now, she says, “I’d love to. And I’m pretty sure I owe your brother the world’s biggest thank you.”

It’s eleven fifty-seven on a Saturday night, three minutes before Christmas, and Carla is so happy that she thinks she could cry. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as of this fic i’ve officially written 209,257 words for carmuel. that’s singlehandedly the most i have ever written (and in less than year) and for a single ship at that, i honestly never even knew i was capable of doing this lmao. i just want to thank everyone who’s still here!! i def wouldn’t have gotten this far without your continuous support <3


	16. closer than paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carla is stressed out from work, and Samuel has a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for: the multiple people who requested a smut/sexual tension-filled chapter from me
> 
> rating: explicit although i feel like if there was a rating higher than that then this would fit in it lmao
> 
> additional tags: smut like literal porn without plot this has no substance to it whatsoever it’s just like 5.5k of them fucking. i honestly can’t promise when i’ll write something like this again because writing plotless smut is so weird to me but i hope y’all like it lsjdksjd. and happy new year!
> 
> title taken from control you by movement

An irritated curse and the unmistakable sound of something being slammed down onto a flat surface comes from the direction of the living room, and Samuel walks out of the kitchen to find Carla hunched over at their dining table, fingers agitatedly massaging her temples. He slowly approaches her, eyeing her phone where it’s lying on the tabletop next to her elbow. It’s still shaking a bit because of how forcefully she’d set it down. 

It doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out what’s wrong—the phone call she’d taken a few minutes prior obviously didn’t go well—but still, he asks, “Everything okay?”

Carla releases a long sigh, although the stiff tension in her back remains nonetheless. “Just these stupid, old board members fighting me on the brand relaunch. As if it isn’t _my_ company.”

Samuel settles behind her, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders. He feels her relax a little underneath his palms, but her muscles remain tightly coiled; undoubtedly, the consequence of being stressed and overworked for nearly the past month.

“Still?” She nods, resting her head against his abdomen with a much softer-sounding sigh as he digs his thumbs into the flesh above her shoulder blades. “They won’t budge?”

“No. You know how they are, completely traditionalist. And petty, because _I’m_ their boss now, and not my father.” She shakes her head, and her arm shifts as she lifts it to rub between her eyebrows. “They’re going to keep being difficult for as long as they can, just because they can.

“I’m sorry, baby. Anything I can do to help?”

She groans softly as he works over a smaller knot in her back, eyes slowly opening to stare up at him. “Directly? No,” she murmurs. “But this is helping with my mood.”

He smiles and leans over to kiss her upside-down on the lips. “And what about dinner?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” she replies, and he feels her smile too. 

“Wine?”

“ _Definitely_ wouldn’t hurt.”

Samuel straightens, squeezing her shoulders one last time. “Then I’ll plate the food, and you can pick the wine because I still have absolutely no idea what pairs well with what.”

“Sounds good,” she says warmly. 

He tries his best to distract Carla all throughout their meal, steering clear of any work-related topics. It works, for the most part; she definitely seems way more relaxed than she had earlier, but Samuel can’t help but notice that there’s still a part of her that’s just… wound tight. 

She seems _tired,_ he realizes. Of course, he’s not a shitty boyfriend and therefore, he’s known about her troubles at work, but this is a different kind of tired. Not just borne from job-related stress, but from being put under an overwhelming amount of pressure. And he’s seen this before. He saw it when they were both seventeen and he had to helplessly watch as Carla slowly spiraled and wither away. Obviously, she was completely alone then and she actually _has him_ now, but still. 

She needs to fully, _completely_ relax. No, he amends as they lie in bed together a couple hours later and he senses Carla’s thoughts drifting back to work, her mind has to be taken off of things. She needs to stop thinking for a while. 

And, Samuel concludes, what’s a better way to accomplish that than with sex?

It isn’t like their sex life has gone even remotely downhill since this all started; given what they had been talking about the first time they slept together, he doubts that will ever happen. Stress or not, the sex is always incredible. Mind-blowing, even. He just needs to make it mind- _numbing,_ and he’s not too proud to admit that that takes time. At least, more time than they’ve actually been able to spare for any of their encounters these last few weeks. 

So, over the next handful of days, Samuel starts to secretly formulate a plan. He asks Carla’s assistant to clear her weekend once he finds out that she doesn’t have any pressing things to handle, and then he picks up some stuff from the store during the week. He goes home a few hours early on Friday just to be sure that he has enough time to get everything prepared, and by the time he hears her opening the front door around six o’clock, he’s seated patiently at the foot of their bed. 

He hears Carla’s heels clicking down the hallway. “Samuel?”

“In here,” he calls, then stands up and walks over to Carla as she comes into their bedroom and immediately pauses.

“What’s all this for?” She asks, smiling curiously and glancing around at the array of lit candles spread across their dressers and end tables. He’d closed the blinds, so the room is bathed in a dim, reddish-orange glow. 

“You’ll find out in a bit,” he tells her, pecking her on the lips. She returns it, although mostly absently; her eyes are still ticking all over the place, trying to figure out what he’s up to. He gives her a soft, mysterious smile, and nods his head at the open door of the en-suite. “In the meantime, I drew a bath for you.”

Carla’s curiosity instantly turns to suspicion. It kind of makes him want to laugh. He knows how much she hates surprises, so he decides to give her the general truth, cupping her face in his hand.

“I just want to help you relax, Carla. You’ve been so stressed lately. I don’t like seeing you like this. I want to take care of you.” 

She visibly softens. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Samuel tells her. “Although, I made sure the water’s temperature was exactly the way you like it, but if you wait around too long…”

Carla rolls her eyes and smiles, stepping away. “Fine. I’m not going to turn down a bath and whatever it is you’ve got planned after the day I’ve had.”

“Hopefully, you won’t be thinking about your day soon enough,” he replies. “Now, go. It’ll give me a chance to finish setting up.”

Carla pulls a lighthearted mocking face, but ultimately disappears into the bathroom. She leaves the door open still, but it’s at an angle where she won’t be able to actually see anything, just hear him shuffling around. He grins to himself, knowing that the suspense is probably going to drive her crazy. 

Even so, Carla doesn’t rush through her bath. She comes back out around half an hour later, although the scent of the lavender oil he had poured into the water reaches his nose first. He turns around and finds Carla walking over to him, hair piled atop her head and a single white towel wrapped around her body. There’s a lazy smile on her lips, and her eyes are slightly heavy-lidded. Good. She already looks calm. 

“Hey,” Samuel says, resting his hands on her waist as she drapes her arms around his neck. “How was it?”

“Amazing.” She cocks her head. “The champagne was a nice touch.”

“I may not know what type of red goes with stuffed chicken, but champagne and bubble baths? Pretty universal knowledge.”

Carla hums a soft laugh, leaning up on her toes a little to slowly capture his lips. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. But the bath was just the beginning.” He grins as she raises her eyebrows at him, gesturing at the bed. “Lie down.”

She’s looking at him as if he’s pointing at a pool of lava and not just their queen-sized mattress. 

Samuel chuckles. “C’mon, don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” she says, more sincerely than what his own light tone warranted. And even though years have passed since everything that happened, hearing Carla say without any hesitation that she trusts him will never get old. It’ll never fail to make his heart flutter, either.

“Then don’t be difficult,” he jokes, lips pressed to her forehead. “I can’t exactly give you a thorough massage if you’re standing up.”

“A massage, huh?” She says teasingly. “What, no table?”

“The bed’s going to be completely fine,” he huffs as Carla finally drops her towel and climbs onto it. 

“I’m pretty sure Valerio has one. You could have asked him to borrow it,” she continues, settling face down into the mattress with a small sigh.

“And _I’m_ pretty sure I don’t even want to know what else he’s done on it. It definitely hasn’t just been limited to what it was designed for.”

Carla laughs, but she still wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, yeah. You’re probably right.”

The next sound she lets out is a muted groan as Samuel rubs some more of the lavender oil into his palms and presses the heels of his hands into her upper back. He spreads his fingers, thumbs aligned with her spine. Then he digs those in a bit too, slowly working his way down each vertebrae.

“Who knew you were so good with your hands,” Carla murmurs after a few minutes, words practically whispered into the pillow. 

“Well, you did,” he replies humorously.

She gives him a lazy scoff that just turns into a thoughtful hum of agreement. He smiles, happy to know that this step of his plan seems to be way more effective than he even thought it was going to be; Carla isn’t sleeping, but her eyes keep drifting closed whenever he hits a particularly good spot, and it only takes seven minutes before she’s practically melting into the sheets. He hasn’t even left her back yet. 

She isn’t the only one benefiting here, however. The gentle sounds she keeps emitting, combined with her soft skin and the scent of the oil, is simultaneously making his head spin and turning him on. Tonight isn’t about mutual satisfaction though, it’s about _Carla,_ so he ignores the gradually growing pressure in his pants and focuses on the massage, working a bit more on the knots in her shoulders.

Eventually, when her back muscles aren’t so rock hard anymore, Samuel moves onto her arms. He works his fingers down either of them until he gets to her wrists, then presses the balls of his thumbs into her palms. He kneads each individual finger, all the way to the tip, and notes with equal parts surprise and pleasure that her hands, at least in this instant, seem to be an erogenous zone—her thighs shift together just slightly, clearly trying to give herself some friction, and she licks and parts her lips on a soundless pant. 

Then, “Oh, _fuck,_ ” she grunts once Samuel works his way from the backs of her legs to her calves, and he doesn’t really have to wonder why; she spends most of her time wearing heels, and he can’t even begin to imagine the strain that must put on your lower legs and feet. He rolls his thumbs and then knuckles into her calf muscles, then has to take a deep breath because she even whimpers a little bit and it simultaneously goes directly to his head, and immediately down south. 

Samuel massages the tension out of the soles of her feet, her heels, her toes. He cradles one of her ankles between his hands, rotating his thumbs above her bone and working his way back up her leg, stopping mid-thigh, then does the same to the other. And then, finally, when Carla is practically so sated that she seems incapable of moving, he slides his hand back up and teases his fingertips in the slick between her legs. 

Carla’s eyes crack back open, and miraculously, in spite of how boneless she clearly is right now, she manages to look playful. He’s sort of impressed. And, okay, endeared. 

“You know, we’re already dating. You don’t have to use your bad porn moves on me to get me to fuck you.”

He laughs quietly, fondly. “This is part three of my plan.”

She hums again as he idly drags his fingers through her folds, avoiding the more sensitive areas of her cunt for now. “Part three?”

“Making you come until you can’t think anymore,” he explains, leaning down to whisper it in her ear, and smirks against the shell of it when his words draw a shiver out of her. He moves lower, kissing her oiled-up—and knot-free—shoulder blade. “Unless you’re against it?”

“Absolutely not,” she replies, and spreads her legs even further for him. 

Samuel chuckles again at how bossy she somehow sounds without even actually giving him an order. He angles his fingers, searching for her clit, and waits for the telltale furrowing of her eyebrows when he finds it; the parting of her mouth on the pillow case as she breathes out softly. It’s too soft for him to hear it really, even with his lips pressed against the base of her spine, but he knows from experience that it’s there, and moreover, that it’s slightly shaky. 

He doesn’t particularly rush or draw out this first orgasm, using his collective knowledge of Carla’s body and what she likes to steadily drive her towards the edge. He rubs her clit in even circles with his index, middle, and ring fingers, curls the tips of them inside of her, then massages her entrance. On a normal day, it would take him way more time to get her to come like this, but the massage of her actual body seemed to be a major point of foreplay for her, because it’s only a few minutes before she’s clamping her thighs tight around his hand and shivering out her release. 

“Fuck,” she pants once she’s recovered, unfurling her fist where it’s gripping the sheets. Samuel removes his own slick fingers from between her legs, bending over to kiss her on her temple and cheek. He’s just about to reach for her lips when, with a random surge of energy and strength, she rolls onto her back and pulls him down by the shirt to kiss him properly. 

It’s deep and lazy and slow, but still kind of filthy, and he has to resist the urge to grind against the edge of the bed to relieve some of the pressure on his cock. But then he feels Carla’s hand palming him through his jeans, and he leans into her with a short moan. 

Carla’s smiling at him, eyes open in thin slits, when they finally pull back from one another. “Mm. Hi,” she says, still stroking him idly. “What do you want me to do?”

He only allows himself a second more of indulgence before he gently takes her wrist and places it by her head, shaking his own as he ducks down to kiss her again. “Nothing. I told you, I want to take care of you tonight.”

A wrinkle appears between her eyebrows as she frowns. “But—”

Before she can finish voicing whatever argument she has prepared, Samuel straddles her waist on the bed, careful not to put too much weight on her. He takes her hands in his own and begins playing with her fingers in a loose resemblance to how he’d been massaging them earlier… and, fine, he may be trying to distract her a little, remembering how much it had an effect on her. 

And it works, because her eyelashes flutter and she gives him a look full of heat. “Okay, but on one condition.”

He has to refrain from sighing, instead asking, “What?”

“Take off your clothes,” she says, nodding at the tent in his pants. “That looks painful.”

Samuel snorts softly. “Fine,” he agrees, momentarily climbing off of her to divest himself of his t-shirt and jeans. Carla watches him in appreciation, lips curled in a smile and the French manicured nail of her index finger caught between her teeth once he’s standing there in his boxer briefs. He decides to leave them on for now, and climbs back on top of her. 

Carla angles her head up for a kiss, and he gladly complies, propping himself up above her with his hands on either side of the pillow. She doesn’t reach for his dick again, but she does lift her hips up into his own and laughs softly into his mouth at the involuntarily gasp that it pulls out of him. He withdraws, narrowing his eyes at her, and she just grins innocently back. 

Well, he already had this next part pre-planned, but if it also serves to get a little payback, then so be it. 

He shifts his weight off her waist, placing a knee between her legs to get her to part them and make room for him. Carla’s thighs hook over the tops of his own once he settles between them, and he leans forward to kiss her again. He cups her breast in one hand, dragging his thumb over her peaked nipple and relishing in the soft vibration that buzzes against his lips as Carla lets out a pleased hum. 

He switches breasts as he moves from her mouth to just underneath her jaw, swirling his tongue in teasing circles over the bone. She shivers a bit, her fingers flexing where they’re resting—surprisingly patiently—on his shoulders. He pinches her nipple, tugs just shy of rough… and _there’s_ the eagerness; she spreads her legs wider and tries to buck into him again. Samuel smirks into the column of her neck and removes his hands from her chest entirely, instead using them to pin her hips to the mattress. 

Carla huffs, although she’s distracted from complaining by Samuel sucking the sensitive spot on her throat. He knows not to mark her, at least not in any place that won’t be covered by clothing, but he also knows exactly what to do to get her to gasp uncontrollably. He takes the flesh into his mouth, pinches it lightly between his teeth, and laves his tongue over it afterwards. She makes a low sound when he scrapes his stubble over the spot, then arches her breasts into his chest in a wordless but obvious plea. 

And since tonight is all about her pleasure, who is he to deny her? He lowers his head and rubs the seam of his lips over her nipple, again catching it against his stubble just to draw another shocked, breathy noise out of her. His ears burn with it, and so does his cock, but he valiantly holds onto his self-control as he finally takes her nipple into his mouth and sucks hard. 

She whimpers, her nails digging into the meat of his shoulders a little. Samuel moves to her other breast, giving it the same attention, then alternates between nipping, rubbing, and suckling at both until Carla’s a shuddering, panting mess beneath him. He loves how sensitive her nipples are. He’s always wanted to see if he could make her come just from stimulating them alone, but Carla’s patience—or lack thereof—would probably never let that happen. 

Case in point is when he looks up at her only to find her gazing back at him, lips shiny and parted, eyes wide and dark and _hot,_ and she groans, “Come _on_.” 

The words are punctuated by her using his momentary distraction with just how sexy she looks to tighten her legs around his waist and roll her cunt along the length of his dick. He moans, and when he holds her hips down this time, it’s got less to do with trying to keep this solely about her and everything to do with trying not to come in his underwear right then and there. 

“Fuck. Okay,” he murmurs hotly, nodding and moving further down the bed. Carla automatically parts her legs for him, and he holds eye contact with her as he finally slides his tongue between her lips. 

She lets out a long gasp towards the ceiling, head bending backwards. Her hand clenches in the sheets by her hip, the other tangling into her hair, and Samuel groans both at the sight of her and how hot and molten and _wet_ she is on his tongue. Of course, he felt it on his fingers when he’d been touching her, but now that he’s tasting her, he’s almost dizzy with it. 

He parts her with his thumbs so that he can get deeper within her, sliding his tongue past her entrance and relishing on how she clenches around him. He withdraws though, lifting his head so that he can suck her clit. Her whole body _twitches,_ and Samuel plants his hands on the backs of her thighs to keep her firmly in place before she starts trying to writhe against him. She’s going to hate him for this in the moment, but he has no doubt that it’ll be worth it. 

Because this orgasm, he absolutely plans on taking his time with. He releases her clit and begins licking softly at it, little kitten licks with the tip of his tongue that he knows probably feels good but still isn’t enough to push her any closer to the edge. Then he swirls just around it, barely brushing it at all, eyes focused on Carla the entire time. Her eyebrows are scrunched in equal parts concentration and growing frustration, and it’s only when Samuel takes his mouth off of her cunt altogether and starts mouthing at the inside of her thighs that her eyes pop open to glare at him. 

“Isn’t teasing me just going to achieve the complete opposite of getting me to relax?”

Samuel huffs a laugh into the soft crease of her leg, lifting his head to smile at her. “Carla, you’d relax if you could just lie back and be patient.”

She does fall onto the pillows, but it’s with an annoyed sigh, followed by a quiet grumble that sounds suspiciously like _fuck off._ He laughs again, lowering back down. 

There’s tension in her thighs when he goes back to kissing them, although it gradually melts away as Carla apparently forces herself to wait. He rewards her for it by finally placing his mouth back on her cunt again; however, he still avoids her clit, instead sucking around her entrance. The tension comes back, then washes away again when he dips a fingertip into her. He takes it out, dragging it through her soaked folds, and rubs the pad of it gently around her clit. 

Carla exhales quietly through her nose, shoulders slightly jumping before she relaxes once more. Over the next few minutes, Samuel just continues to tease and play with her. He barely scrapes her clit with the edge of his thumbnail, or he presses or licks into her entrance, but never far enough to reach that spot inside of her that makes her clutch to him and cry out. Eventually, the frown disappears from her face as she eases into his ministrations. 

Then, without warning, he slides two fingers into her at the same time as he fully takes her clit between his lips. A raw gasp is torn from Carla’s throat, her eyes fly open, and she immediately wraps her thighs around his head. Samuel pries himself free with the hand that isn’t curling inside of her, holding her knee out, and keeps his eyes on her as he mercilessly works her over. 

He waits until she’s just moments away from coming—body taut, head back, spine arched, moans _loud—_ before promptly pulling completely away from her. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Carla breathlessly demands once she quickly registers that her orgasm is no longer imminent. She sort of looks like she wants to throttle him, so rising up and leaning closer to her is probably not his best idea, but she ultimately doesn’t fight him as he pecks her on the lips. 

“Getting something,” he says mysteriously, and her angry eyes follow his movements as he reaches over into the nightstand on Carla’s side of the bed. Although, the fire in her gaze extinguishes as soon as she realizes what he’s pulling out. 

“Shit,” she chuckles, sounding equally breathless and impressed as she stares at the skinny, compact vibrator in Samuel’s hand. He’s used it on her a few times before, and it’s always really intense for her. She’s probably thinking what he already knows: it’s going to be even more so now because it’s been a while since the last time they’ve done this. 

“Trust me?” He asks her again. 

Carla nods. “Told you. Always.”

He smiles, capturing her lips. “Then lie down.”

She goes easily, although she is smirking somewhat, probably because it’s pretty rare whenever he bosses her around in bed. She looks amused, but he can tell that she also kind of likes it. 

Samuel kneels back between her legs once more, resting on his haunches. He switches the vibrator on to its lowest setting, meeting Carla’s eye as the soft buzz fills the room. Even with the candles’ glow, he knows that her cheeks are flushed with anticipation, and she nods her head slightly to let him know that she’s ready. 

Still, he starts with her breasts; dragging the metal tip around her nipples, listening to her quiet gasps. He moves it downwards, dips it into her navel and makes her laugh, but she quiets and focuses again when he dips back between her legs. 

He knows better than to go directly for her clit, instead massaging around her labia, then easing it through her wetness for a better slide. She murmurs and sighs, eyes hot and heatedly fixed on him. It’s fitting, he idly thinks, how he can see the candle flames flickering on the surface of them, but then they’re fluttering shut because he slides the vibrator into her, angling it upwards. Carla clenches her jaw; she’s probably clenching around the vibrator too, and suddenly, he has to feel it for himself. He pulls the vibrator back out of her, replacing it with his mouth.

He licks into her, and at the same time, finally moves the vibrator upwards and presses the edge against her clit. He absorbs how she jerks anyway, and also how she gets even wetter, absolutely drenching the lower half of his face. 

“Fuck…” She whimpers. And when he replaces his tongue with his fingers again and crooks them until he’s pressing against her g-spot, “Oh, fuck, _Samuel._ ”

He mouths against the inside of her knee where it’s resting over his shoulder, unable to take his eyes off of her. She looks beautiful—like a literal goddess, actually, lit up in honey-golden light, chest heaving. At some point, she’d taken her hair out of its bun, and now it’s spread out across the pillows. He wants to see her come. 

So he bites her thigh, adds a third finger, and presses the vibrator directly to her clit now, switching the setting a single level higher. Carla’s breathing turns strangled as her muscles lock and go stiff, and she stays like that for a few beats before she lets out a loud cry and dissolves into a violent shiver that wracks throughout her body for the next several moments. 

She eventually makes another choked, gasping sound and shifts her hips away from him at the same time as her hands fly down to remove the vibrator off of her. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s still panting heavily, twitching every now and then with an aftershock. Samuel drops the vibrator on the bed and entwines their fingers together, soothing his thumb over the back of her hand.

When she seems to be done, he carefully eases his fingers out of her and lies down beside her on the bed. Her breathing is a little shaky, but it’s beginning to even out, and Samuel takes a second to press his palm to the front of his boxers to give himself some relief. 

“Jesus Christ,” Carla finally breathes, sliding her hand over her eyes and into her hair.

Samuel laughs softly and kisses her sweaty temple. “We aren’t done yet.”

She widens her gaze in shock. “That was, like, the hardest I’ve come in a long time. I can promise you that I’m feeling more relaxed than ever right now.”

“But you’re still awake. And talking coherently,” he says. “So we proceed with the plan.”

“You’re awfully confident for someone who was practically a virgin when we first had sex.”

“ _And_ you’re still making fun of me. You’re definitely not relaxed enough yet,” he continues, making Carla giggle. 

It turns into a gasp when he skims his fingers over her sides, tickling her in retaliation. She kicks and squirms, but her efforts to fight him off are largely ineffective because of her orgasm; Samuel has mercy on her fairly quickly though, crawling back up her body and leaning down to kiss her even more breathless than she already is. 

For a while, they just leisurely make out. He doesn’t even protest when Carla’s hand eventually slides back between their bodies, dipping into his underwear and wrapping around his length. He groans into her mouth and shallowly thrusts into her fist, the sensation of both that and her tongue on his own making him tremble. Still, he only allows her to touch him long enough to take away the edge, and backs away once he feels his control starting to fade.

Carla pouts, but he just smiles into their kiss and begins playing with her nipples again. She shivers, clearly still sensitive, so Samuel spends the next few minutes slowly working her back up, paying extra attention to all of her weak spots. Soon, he’s sliding back down the mattress and hooking both of her legs over his shoulders again. 

She comes gently this time, rolling her hips in long, slow movements as Samuel drops his mouth open and lets her take it from him. But this time, he doesn’t give her a chance to recover afterwards. The moment he senses her climax subsiding, he tightly secures his lips around Carla’s clit and moves with her as she instinctively twitches away. 

He feels her hand tangle into his hair, weakly attempting to push him off of her. “Fuck, I can’t— _sensitive,_ ” she whines. 

Samuel noses against her. “One more, baby. You can do it.” Carla whimpers instead of outright replying, so he lifts his head. “Tell me to stop and I will. Do you want me to?”

Her fingers tighten in his locks, but she doesn’t use the new leverage to try and push him away again. He waits patiently. Then Carla shakes her head. 

He puts his mouth back on her, intending to make this orgasm fast. Samuel flicks his tongue in rapid movements, barely allowing himself a second to breathe, and his ears are ringing because of how tightly Carla’s clamping her thighs around his head, but he doesn’t care. It only takes another minute or so for her to come undone again, voice reedy and raw.

Samuel instantly moves away, not interested in over-stimulating her to the point of pain. He’s also alarmingly close to coming untouched, because the sound and taste and _sight_ of her is driving him mad. He frees himself from his boxers, squeezes the base of his cock, and screws his eyes shut.

However, he opens them again once he feels Carla moving, only to find her lifting her legs and silently coaxing him to fuck the soft skin of her inner thighs with a glassy expression on her face. Samuel is too far gone to do anything but comply, so he hugs her legs to his chest and starts thrusting, panting roughly against her calf. Carla just watches him with half-lidded eyes, flushed cheeks, and her lower lip caught between her teeth, encouraging him with nothing more than a look. 

Then, “Are you gonna come?” 

Samuel nods jerkily, his brows furrowed as he picks up his thrusts to an even higher speed. Before he even knows it, Carla’s dropping her legs and reaching down to push his dick inside of her. She’s wet and open and he slides in easily, and she’s still sensitive enough that she comes instantly. A desperate-sounding cry leaves her lips, and that’s enough to immediately push Samuel off the edge with her. 

He manages to catch himself before he collapses on top of her just in time, burying his face in her neck as he attempts to catch his breath. Carla’s own breath is unsteady in his ear, and her pulse is hammering against his nose. They lay like that for a long moment. 

Once Samuel feels like he can move again, he lifts his head and stares at her face. Her eyes are still shut, but her lashes are _wet,_ and that’s enough to get his gut to twist.

“Shit, are you okay? That was starting to get kind of rough, did I hurt you?”

A slow, lazy smile spreads across her lips. Her response is delayed, like she’s trying to find her voice. Or like she’s already half-asleep. “Definitely, _definitely_ not. God, Samuel.”

He chuckles, rolling off of her and gathering her into his arms. She doesn’t fight him at all, though she doesn’t actually put any concentrated effort in moving into him either. By now, he’s absolutely sure that she’s almost asleep. 

“So, did my plan work?”

“If you really have to ask that,” she mumbles into his chest, semi-coherent. 

Samuel grins, then looks down at their bodies. “We should probably take another bath.” Carla makes a sound of protest. “I’ll carry you. Come on.”

She grumbles as he gets out of bed and hoists her into his arms, but as she settles against his torso, she musters up the strength to press a kiss to his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he replies. “You can sleep in the bathtub. I’ll take care of everything else.”


	17. castellum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All he knows is that everything happened _fast._ That shouldn’t surprise him. He and Carla know escalation well, it’s just… they don’t fight. At least, not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for: art3mis24
> 
> rating: teen
> 
> prompt: an established relationship fight as well as day five of eliteweek!
> 
> additional tags: light angst (i probably could have made this more “heartbreaking” for the eliteweek prompt but oh well, i wanted to participate and already had this mostly written), and carla’s parents because they’re trigger warnings by themselves

“Samuel, this is ridiculous,” Carla protests for the hundredth time as he maneuvers her down the sidewalk, his hands covering her eyes to keep her from seeing where they’re going. 

He should say _half-heartedly_ protests, because the words come out on a laugh, he can feel her cheeks stretched in a wide smile beneath his palms, and if she wanted, she could easily shrug him off. Most of all, he can sense how giddy she actually is, and he knows it isn’t just from the bottle of rioja they shared over dinner. She’s excited for the surprise he has planned, even if she won’t outwardly admit it.

And even if she complains the entire walk there. 

“Couldn’t we have taken a cab?” The question comes out a little jilted in the middle because of how he has her side-step a grate in the pavement. 

“No, because _that_ would be ridiculous. Where we’re headed is only a block away from the restaurant.” 

She huffs in unconvincing annoyance. “People are staring.”

“How do you know? You can’t see,” he says cheekily.

“Because _this is ridiculous,_ of course people are going to stare!”

Samuel chuckles and stops walking, peering over Carla’s shoulder at the building before them. “If they’re staring, it’s because you’re whining so loudly,” he teases in a low whisper, and promptly removes his hands. 

He waits patiently as Carla silently stares up at the marquee. He’s unable to properly see her face from this angle, just her profile, dimly illuminated by the streetlights. For some reason, he feels the need to fill the quiet. 

“Remember last week, how you mentioned that you went to the ballet a few times as a girl and loved it? Well, I searched upcoming shows and this amateur group came up. I know it’s not the national dance company or anything fancy like that, but they’re still supposed to be pretty gr—”

He’s abruptly silenced as Carla turns around, wraps her arms around his neck, and slants their mouths together. Instinctively, his hands fall to her waist to steady her. She’s smiling into the kiss, he can feel it, but he’s nowhere near prepared for the full force of it when she pulls back and meets his eyes. 

“It’s perfect,” she says. There’s a husky quality to her voice, so slight that anyone but him probably wouldn’t have noticed it. 

Samuel gives her a soft grin and squeezes her hips, whatever sudden anxiety he’d been feeling instantly dissipating. “Should we go inside? It’s starting soon.”

Carla nods, letting him entwine their fingers together and lead her into the building. While the auditorium is already pretty full, they manage to find a pair of seats with a decent view of the stage, settling in with excited anticipation.

The company is performing _Romeo & Juliet, _and while Samuel can’t pretend to know anything whatsoever about ballet, he’s at least seen the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and can follow the plot well-enough. He definitely can appreciate how beautiful the dancing is, all graceful moves and steady, controlled power. Steely. Composed. It reminds him of Carla; not necessarily how she moves, but how she acts—or, well, _acted._

Samuel finds himself watching her more than the actual ballet over the next hour and a half. She’s certainly freer and lighter now than she was in school, and he doesn’t just mean now in this _moment,_ watching the dancers with a sort of awed tinkle in her eye, but in general. Sure, she’s still as self-controlled as ever; that’s such an ingrained aspect of her personality that he doubts that will ever change, but she also doesn’t try to actively hide herself from the world anymore. Nowadays, she laughs loudly at jokes until her face is red, or gets sauce on her chin whenever they eat out, or lets Lu drunkenly drag her onto a stage and sing karaoke, and only fights Samuel a little bit on deleting the video he recorded of it afterwards.

Just two and a half years back, he’d only catch glimpses of this girl, usually when they were holed up in his apartment and nobody else was around to see. Even then, it was still a closed-off thing; detached from the rest of her life and boiled down to the couch in his living room or his tiny twin bed. He understood why, though. Hell, he’d been in the same place. But it’s nice that those walls of hers aren’t just lowered for him anymore. It’s nice to see Carla unadulteratedly _happy._

He’s pulled back to reality by the sound of applause, turning his head to find the dancers lined up in a row on stage and bowing as the curtains draw closed. He automatically—and belatedly—joins in on the clapping, catching Carla smirking at him out of the corner of his eye. 

“What’s so funny?” 

“You were barely paying attention the entire time, that’s what,” she replies, although she doesn’t sound annoyed, just amused. “Too busy zoning out.” 

He’s thankful that the low lighting hides his guilty blush from her, but based on the way her smirk deepens, she probably knows he’s doing it regardless. Still, he says, “I liked it.” She gives him a disbelieving look. “I did!”

“It’s okay, just admit it,” she teases as they stand up and fall into the sea of people walking down the aisle towards the exit. “You were bored.”

As they finally spill into the theater’s lobby, Samuel catches her hand so that she stops walking and turns to him. “I wasn’t bored, I promise. I had fun. I was just… distracted,” he says meaningfully.

Her expression softens. “I had fun, too.”

Instead of immediately catching a cab home, they leisurely stroll down the street. Carla complains significantly less this time around, although that one-hundred percent has to do with how they’re hand-in-hand now and not awkwardly shuffling because of how Samuel had been shielding her eyes. 

“If you loved the ballet so much, why haven’t you gone since you were little?” He idly asks as they walk. 

A tiny, wistful smile curls on her lips. “It’s not that I loved it, I...” She trails off, shrugging. “It reminds me of Marina. She was a dancer, you know?”

He thinks of recording her that afternoon in the gym and softly replies, “Yeah. I remember.”

“We only went a couple of times, like I told you. Laura would take us. Guzmán would come, too.” Carla gazes off into the distance, her smile widening a bit as she gets lost in the memory. “Afterwards, we’d go on a walk just like this because there was a gelato place nearby, and Marina would do pirouettes and arabesques all over the sidewalk. Guzmán used to think it was the funniest thing.”

“I would’ve taken you sooner if I’d have known,” Samuel says, gentle. It isn’t often she talks about Marina. “Maybe he’ll join us next time.”

Carla lets out a quiet snort as she’s drawn out of her reverie. “He’d probably just say how he doesn’t want to be our third wheel.”

“He can bring Nadia.”

“Are we really going to be that couple who goes on double-dates?” Carla turns to him, lips pressed together in a more playful smile as she closes the already minimal distance between them.

“Why not? We can also share a milkshake with two straws and hold hands over the middle console while we go on a scenic drive,” he jokes.

“Please, we are nowhere near that innocent,” Carla mutters laughingly as she finally leans in the rest of the way and captures his lips. As if to prove her point, she makes sure the kiss isn’t innocent, either. It’s slow, deep, and heated; not enough to get them arrested for indecent exposure or anything, but it’s definitely a promise for what’s going to happen once they get back to his apartment. And even though Samuel can’t wait to undress her and show her how much he loves her, he’s also pretty content with just standing here and kissing her forever, regardless of the looks they’re probably getting from anyone who happens to be walking past them. 

Then there’s a polite but stern clearing of someone’s throat. “Carla.”

The two of them break apart and instinctively look in the direction of the man’s voice, only to find Carla’s parents awkwardly standing just a few feet away. Beside him, Carla instantly stiffens. It’s such a subtle move that Samuel knows they probably can’t even see it happening, but he can feel how her shoulders turn to steel beneath the comforting hand he places on her back. 

She hasn’t seen or spoken to them since she left Spain after graduation; hadn’t even bothered contacting them when she came back after spending two lonely years in London six months ago. He knows it isn’t the amount of time that has passed that’s making her so tense, though. How could she not be, after everything they put her through?

“Hi.” Carla’s voice has a curt edge to it, but it’s mostly toneless. “What are you doing here?”

“Is that really all you have to say, darling? It’s been a while,” Teo responds, forehead wrinkling. He sounds just as condescending as he had that day in the hospital: fake-worried for Christian, the boy he had put there. Samuel clenches his jaw. Carla doesn’t respond.

Her mom uses the silence to input, “You look good, honey. Your hair is so long now.”

It’s such a lame, unimportant thing to say, but it also serves to highlight Beatriz’s nervousness. _Good,_ Samuel thinks. _At least one of you is aware that you’ve fucked up with her._

Carla doesn’t respond to that, either. Instead, she says, “You didn’t answer my question.”

Teo sighs in thinly veiled annoyance. “The city is free for everyone to walk, no? Not just you and your friend.”

_Friend._ Samuel knows it’s a misstep taken on purpose to get a rise out of Carla, because the short glance Teo gives him as he says it is nothing if not dismissive, loathing, _disapproving._ Carla doesn’t take the bait, she’s too smart for that, but she does move a few centimeters closer to Samuel. 

“I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Beatriz,” the woman says to him. 

He gives her a short nod, even though he thinks that her desperation to act like there isn’t one big, giant elephant wedged between the four of them is only making this even more awkward. “Samuel. Nice to meet you.”

She doesn’t ask _how do you know Carla_ or any of the other normal questions one would have when meeting their daughter’s boyfriend, because she already knows. She _knows_ who he is. All she does is smile politely.

Teo doesn’t bother with the pleasantries. “You’re a bit far from your neighborhood, aren’t you?” He remarks coolly. Samuel furrows his eyebrows at how much disdain he put in that single word. _Neighborhood._ Like it’s some derogatory curse.

“Dad,” Carla warns, voice sharp. 

“What? I’m just saying,” the man goes on, feigning innocence. “This is an expensive area. I doubt there’s much the two of you could do here together on his salary.” He raises his eyebrows. “Unless, Carla, you pay for everything. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

Samuel’s fist tightens at his side, anger simmering beneath his skin. How dare he bring up Christian? 

But it’s Carla who snaps first. “ _Enough._ Why the fuck is it always about money with you?”

Beatriz’s lips flatten into a thin line, her hand curling tighter around the strap of her purse, though she remains silent. Her husband sighs, as if Carla’s outburst is uncalled for. Samuel desperately wants to punch him, but he holds on to every ounce of self-control he has in his body, rooting himself to the spot. 

“Carla...” Teo scolds, sounding almost as if he’s tired. 

She powers on though, taking a step closer. “No, seriously. Is that all _you_ have to say after all this time? Of course it is. Because money is all that matters to you.” She scoffs and shakes her head. “I’ve been doing great, by the way. And Samuel isn’t just my friend, he’s my boyfriend. He makes me happy. You know that, and you knew that when you were forcing me to stay away from him by threatening his life, too.”

Teo doesn’t even bother arguing that fact. He just slowly lifts his chin, ignoring Samuel’s presence and regarding his daughter with cold, hard eyes. And then he has the nerve to say, “We should get going. It’s clear that we aren’t going to be able to have a civil conversation with you, but that’s my mistake. I shouldn’t have assumed you were anything but still a child.”

That’s what finally makes Samuel’s vision turn completely red. After everything Carla has done for him, sacrificed for _them,_ he’s just going to act as if she’s nothing more than a bratty, rebellious kid? 

Teo turns around. But as Samuel moves forward to go after him, he’s stopped by Carla placing a hand on his shoulder and is forced to watch the man hail a cab a little ways down the street. Samuel makes himself calm down and looks back at Carla. 

Her eyes are focused on her mom though, who is still standing in the same spot. “And you’re not going to say anything at all, right? Like usual.”

Still, Beatriz stays quiet. Carla nods—and then goes rigid again as her mom closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around Carla in a hug. 

Samuel watches Carla’s expression flicker between many conflicting emotions. Mostly, he sees the pain in her eyes, her façade finally cracking. She shuts them, tentatively placing her hands on her mom’s back. 

“Beatriz,” Teo impatiently calls where he’s waiting next to an idling cab, the back door already open. 

“I’m really glad I got to see you,” Beatriz whispers sadly, lips near Carla’s ear. She leans back, looks to Samuel, and gives him a single nod. He understands; he returns it. Then she joins her husband, who stares at them for a second longer before slipping into the backseat after her. 

“Fuck,” Samuel exhales as the cab drives away. He abruptly turns to Carla. Unlike a few seconds ago, her face is devoid of any emotion as she watches the tail lights disappear around the corner. “Are you okay?”

She nods and tears her eyes off of the street, flicking them over to him. “I’m fine.”

Her tone matches her expression. _Shuttered_ is the word he wants to use to describe them both, and he begins to frown, reaching out for her. Her eyes briefly fall closed as he cups her cheek. “Carla—”

They open again. “Samuel, I’m fine,” she cuts him off quietly and somewhat impatiently. “I just want to go home. I’m tired.”

He searches her face for a second longer, uncertainty cloying deep in his gut, but ultimately gives her a wordless nod and drops his hand to hold hers. She doesn’t fight him, and he hails them a taxi of their own to bring them back to the apartment. 

The ride is dead silent. That’s not unusual; the two of them are prone to lapsing into content silences, even when they aren’t sitting in a cab where a nosy driver could overhear them, but Carla typically at least sits _close_ to Samuel. She normally plays with his fingers, or has a hand on his knee, or rests her head on his shoulder. _Something_. Right now, though, her temple is leaning against the glass of her window as she blankly stares out of it. Samuel’s able to sneak glances at her the entire time, if only because she doesn’t tear her eyes off of the blurring street once. 

They may only be separated by the middle seat, but Samuel can’t help but feel as if she’s currently worlds away from him at the moment. 

He knows Carla deals with her issues by shutting people out. Of course he knows, he spent the better part of their final semester at Las Encinas trying to get her to open up to him. She had more than good reason not to back then, though: her father’s threats, the loss of her family’s business… Samuel breaking her trust, most of all. But she trusts him now. Her business is secure and he isn’t in any danger. She can let him be there for her. She can _talk_ to him. 

She still doesn’t say anything to him as they climb the stairs to his floor, but as they enter the apartment and she walks past him, Samuel gently catches her by the wrist. She pauses and looks at him, expectant. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He hesitantly asks her, brows furrowed. 

A short sigh escapes her mouth, giving away her growing irritation. He doesn’t know why she’s annoyed with _him_. “Yes,” she answers almost icily, a very direct giveaway to the fact that she isn’t, if her entire demeanor since her parents showed up wasn’t enough of an indication. If Samuel didn’t _know better._

His frown deepens. “Carla, why are you lying to me?”

Something conflicted momentarily passes over her face, but it’s gone in an instant as she presses her lips together and pulls away from him instead. He follows her into the kitchen, standing near the table as she opens the fridge. He doesn’t think she’s actually looking for anything; only occupying herself so she has an excuse to ignore him. 

“I just think we should talk about it,” he says. 

Carla scoffs dismissively, but the line of her shoulders is rigid. “What is there to talk about? I was bound to run into my parents again someday, sooner or later, and it went pretty much just how I expected it would. I’m not surprised. I don’t expect anything else from them. I’m _fine._ ”

He tries for a different approach, gentler and more sympathetic. Because he _is_ , after all. He doesn’t expect her to meet the two people who have basically caused the majority of her trauma again and walk away completely unaffected. _Samuel’s_ not even all that okay; if not for himself and all that Teodoro has indirectly put him through as well, then on Carla’s behalf.

“It’s okay if you aren’t alright after what happened back there,” he attempts. “You don’t have to pretend that you are.”

But this different approach is obviously not the right one at all, because Carla forcefully shuts the fridge’s door and turns to glare at him. “I’m not _pretending_ anything. I said I was fine. Just drop it, Samuel,” she snaps sharply.

“ _No,_ because you’re clearly _not_ fine,” he retaliates, his own frustration mounting up and spilling through the cracks. “I’m trying to help and you’re just—”

“How has it not occurred to you yet that I just _don’t want to talk about it right now?_ ” She heatedly interrupts him, coming a few steps closer.

It puts him on the defensive. “Why are you so angry?”

“Because you can’t take a fucking hint and back off! _Like always,_ ” she lashes out at him, meaningful, deliberate. As soon as the words are out, however, she falls quiet in shock and rears back a little. Samuel does the same.

_Like always._ Like always, when she kept pushing him out and away; when he stood on the other side of her near-impenetrable fortress walls and had to watch her crumble from the inside-out, helpless to do anything about it because she wouldn’t let him. Like he said, she had reason then, but now?

He never thought he’d have to feel that specific sort of powerlessness ever again. He never thought he’d have to feel that same _hurt_ that clung to him like bruises whenever Carla shut him out with well-aimed words or outright dismissal again. 

It looks like he’d been wrong. 

Samuel slowly straightens, squaring his shoulders. There’s regret written clear as day across Carla’s face, but the damage has been done. When he speaks next, his voice is low even to his own ears, although not without an edge. 

“I’m just trying to help you, _like always._ But fine, since it’s what you want, I’ll take the hint and give you some space.”

She doesn’t quite flinch as he throws her words back at her, but she does start to hesitantly reach out to him, guilt flashing in her gaze. “Samuel…”

He doesn’t turn back around. The apartment’s door shuts behind him with a loud thud, seemingly echoing in the narrow hallway. For a moment, Samuel just stands there and breathes deeply, fists clenched at his sides. He needs to get out of here and clear his head, but he really doesn’t know where to go. Omar’s, maybe, but that also seems a bit drastic; it’s not like he’s searching for a place to crash for the night. Besides, if he does go there, then he’ll have to explain to Omar what just happened. And Samuel isn’t entirely sure what did. 

All he knows is that everything happened _fast._ That shouldn’t surprise him. He and Carla know escalation well, it’s just… they don’t fight. At least, not anymore. 

His feet begin walking of their own accord. He ends up at a park nearby, following the looping path with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket, though not nearly as deep as he is in his own thoughts. The fresh air is helping him cool down some, making way for rationalization. Carla’s words are still stinging, but now they’re just accompanied by his own guilt. 

He knows what Carla is like when she feels like she’s being cornered. She hits where it’ll hurt the most, if only so you’ll back off and leave her alone. There are usually warning signs too, the same ones that were there just mere minutes ago: the pinch between her brow, the way her shoulders hunch the slightest inch closer to her ears, the jut of her chin. And Samuel had blindly avoided them. He’d been so bothered by Carla shutting him out like she did in school, he forgot that pressuring her to open up to him hadn’t gotten him anywhere back then. No, it only made everything worse.

Samuel sighs. He’s not solely in the wrong, he knows that. But good intentions or not, he didn’t make anything better by breathing down her neck. He should’ve seen this coming. It’s just that the past few months with her have been wonderful, basically bump-free, _happy._ He thinks the both of them haven’t necessarily moved on from their demons, though; being together has simply made it easier to avoid them. That cloud of anger that haunted Samuel throughout the latter half of his first senior year had come rushing back so quickly when he saw Teodoro, almost like it had been simmering beneath the surface this entire time, waiting to come out again.

And as for Carla… deep down, he’s always been aware that he alone isn’t enough to get rid of the trauma she’s gone through. Soften it, maybe, yes. But not heal her completely. 

Feeling more shitty than anything now, Samuel digs his phone out of his pocket. It’s been almost half an hour since he left. There aren’t any missed texts or calls. Even though she had called out for him, it wouldn’t be surprising if Carla’s still mad. He decides to give her some space for a little longer; it’s the least he can do at this point. 

Eventually, however, his legs start to burn from walking in the same misshapen circle for too long and his exhaustion from the night’s events hit him hard and fast, so he heads back home. By now, a little over an hour has passed. It’s kind of late now and Carla might be asleep already. Part of him hopes she isn’t; he’d like to apologize and clear the air between them as soon as possible. 

Unfortunately, the apartment is completely dark and quiet when he returns. Nothing has been touched or is out of place. He slips into the bedroom and finds Carla in bed, lying on her side and facing away from him. 

Samuel pushes down his disappointment in favor of taking a quick shower. When he comes back out a few short minutes later, Carla hasn’t moved an inch. He carefully eases under the covers, staring at her back for a second in indecision before ultimately deciding to not disturb her, mirroring her position. 

When she first moved into his apartment, she hadn’t brought anything else with her besides her considerable wardrobe and array of toiletries. She did insist on buying him a bigger bed, and while Samuel always liked cuddling with her on the tiny mattress he used to have, he has to admit that the added space is usually nice. They no longer have to worry about rolling off either side if they were to shift the slightest centimeter. 

Now, however, the space just makes something tighten in Samuel’s chest. It’s not like they go to sleep every night wrapped around each other, but it feels weird not to be touching in some sort of way. Like in the cab, the distance feels so significant, as if he won’t be able to reach her were he to extend his arm back. 

Whatever exhaustion had been clinging to him before is long gone now. All he does is feel terrible. He misses her, most of all, even though it’s barely been two hours and she’s right next to him.

It feels like he lies there for a long time, just staring into the darkness. The mattress shifts as Carla turns over. A long, soft sigh gets exhaled through her nose, like one usually does whenever she’s settling into a deep sleep. Samuel doesn’t have to look to know what she looks like; he’s had the image of the peaceful, smoothed-out expression she gets in slumber memorized for a while now. He still wants to see her anyway, though.

But before he can roll onto his other side, Carla’s whispered voice breaks through the silence. “Are you asleep?”

With an exhale of his own, Samuel faces her. She has her head resting on her hands on the pillow, eyes peering back at him. 

“No. You’re not, either?”

Carla shakes her head. Because Samuel’s vision has long since adjusted to the darkness, he can see the guilt in her gaze reflecting back at him. “I couldn’t,” she answers in that same quiet murmur. Then, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.”

He’s already pulling her to him before the sentence is even entirely out; she goes willingly, her head tucked beneath his chin, face pressed into his chest, hand firmly on his back. 

“It’s okay,” Samuel says. “I know.”

“I wasn’t mad at you,” she continues, words uttered into the fabric of his t-shirt. “I was mad at myself.”

He pulls back and looks down at her. Her eyes swivel up to meet his own, but she doesn’t move. “At yourself?”

“For still letting my parents get to me after all this time.”

“Carla, no one expects you to just not care about what they do or say to you. They’re still your parents,” Samuel gently tells her. 

“I know. That’s what’s so frustrating. They’re always going to have the ability to disappoint me just _because_ they’re my parents. It doesn’t matter if only a handful of years or decades pass. I’m just pissed at myself for letting my dad bait me like that.” She falls silent for a moment, her fingers anxiously flexing between his shoulder blades. “But I think what my mom said to me bothered me even more.”

“Why?” Samuel asks, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer. He just has the feeling that Carla, now that she’s ready, needs to voice it. 

“I spent so much time wishing that she’d just fucking care, but she’s always been so passive. Tonight wasn’t really any different, but it’s almost like…” Her breath wavers. “Like she _cares_ , just not enough to actually do anything about it, you know?”

Samuel smooths his hand down her hair. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she replies, starting to shake her head again.

“I still am. You deserve better,” Samuel says. Carla doesn’t respond, but she burrows further into his torso, almost like she’s trying to crawl into him. He continues to idly stroke her back. “And I’m sorry for cornering you earlier. I should’ve listened to you and realized that you didn’t want to talk.”

“You were right, you were just trying to help. It was wrong of me to throw that back in your face. You’re the only person who’s ever really been here for me.”

He tips her chin up with his fingers and gives her a crooked smile. “I always will be. I won’t ever let you push me away, but I think I can learn how to not suffocate you so much when you just need to breathe.”

He’s met with the soft touch of her lips on his. Her cheeks are slightly wet.

“I love you,” she breathes into his mouth. 

Instead of saying the words back, Samuel puts the sentiment in the way he kisses her deeply; Carla understands, clutching him even tighter. When they part, they rest their heads on the same pillow, noses brushing. He watches while she studiously stares at the collar of his shirt as she runs her fingers along the hem, the tiny, thoughtful furrow in her brow letting him know that she’s not finished speaking yet. 

“I have to apologize for one more thing.” She still hasn’t looked back up at him, so Samuel smooths his hand across her lower back to wordlessly tell her that he’s listening. “It’s not just that you were cornering me before. I could have been straight up about not wanting to talk, but I don’t know… sometimes, it’s still hard opening up. Not because I don’t want to or because I don’t love you enough to. I’ve just been bottling everything up for as long as I can remember, and unlearning that isn’t easy.”

“I get it. I feel the same way too, sometimes.” Carla’s eyes flick up to his in surprise. He exhales quietly. “I mean, there are things I don’t talk about. Things that have been easier to forget or ignore since we got together, but still. So I guess it was hypocritical of me to try and force you to open up, huh?”

She huffs a laugh, but it’s lacking its usual humor. Samuel licks his lips. 

“But I was thinking, maybe we _should_ talk about it,” he hesitantly suggests. “Professionally.”

Carla searches his gaze. “You mean, like therapy?”

“We’ve gone through so much in such a short amount of time, not to mention how young we are.” He doesn’t need to elaborate on what they’ve gone through; all of it lies unspoken between, over, and around them, like they’re trapped in a thick rain cloud of haunting memories. “Honestly, I feel like I probably could have used it for a long time now, even before everything happened. Whatever issues I have didn’t start at Las Encinas, they just got more intense.”

“Yeah,” she agrees quietly. “And you think it would help?”

She sounds… not _hopeful,_ exactly, but curious. 

He shrugs. “I don’t see how it could make things worse.”

The soft scoff she lets out fans across his chin. “We could go to prison for being accessories to murder. Or thrown into mental hospitals.”

“Therapists have to follow doctor-patient confidentiality. It’s their job to treat people who have gone through traumatic experiences, not condemn them for it,” Samuel reasons. “Obviously, it’s different if you’re a serial killer or something. But I think we’ll be okay.”

She chews on her lip, thinking it over. “Maybe we can look into it tomorrow, then.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he says, leaning in to kiss the apprehensive look off her face. She curls into him afterwards, drowsiness finally seeming to take over her as she stifles a yawn into his sternum. Samuel’s own exhaustion returns to him, but he still casts a lazy smile over the top of her head. “I don’t know what’s worse, being the type of couple that goes on double dates and shares milkshakes or the type that misses each other so much after one stupid fight that they can’t go to sleep.”

“Definitely the milkshakes,” Carla immediately murmurs, somehow sounding both staunch and half-awake at the same time. “No amount of therapy in the world can fix those people.”

Chuckling, Samuel pulls the blanket higher up on their intertwined bodies, engulfing them in warmth. 


	18. the visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She might be mad it’s taken him so long. She’ll probably tease him for the macaroni. He can live with both of those things, as long everything works out in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for: the anon who gave me this prompt back in may (i am so sorry it’s taken me nearly a whole year, but hey!!! this is the first prompt i ever received so filling it kind of made me feel a type of way lol)
> 
> prompt: a rain-soaked samuel shows up at carla’s place with macaroni, hoping to get her back
> 
> rating: teen
> 
> additional tags: another post s3 fix-it set around six months after graduation. i also spiced it up and partially based it off a tweet by @ carlasmacaroni so credit to them for the idea!

Samuel is regretting the macaroni. 

The London sky is dark and grey, and big, fat raindrops are currently falling from it at a slight angle. But the way his hair is plastered to his forehead or his shirt is soaked through and clinging to his chest isn’t why he’s regretting the slightly warmed plastic container of macaroni held in his hand. He’s regretting it because, to put it simply, it’s _stupid._

He thought bringing it here with him would be… charming, he guesses. Maybe an olive branch. After all, Carla did say that as long as he brought it, he could visit her, right?

The thought that she was probably just joking in a final sad, nostalgic remembrance of what they could have had together hasn’t crossed his mind until now. It would’ve been helpful if it occurred to him before he got onto the plane. It would’ve been nice if it struck him before he threw together this meal in his five-star hotel suite’s kitchenette, which he only has because Guzmán had paid for his trip here and wouldn’t take no—or _a cheap motel is fine, seriously_ —for an answer. 

Maybe he’d feel less ridiculous if he didn’t take too long _to_ visit. If it was still summer vacation, and therefore only a few weeks since he last saw Carla, this wouldn’t seem so wildly inappropriate all of a sudden; he probably wouldn’t be getting drenched from head-to-toe, either. It’s been half a school year, however. He and Carla have barely been in contact whatsoever, and this spontaneous arrival at her apartment in Chelsea is only happening because _Lu_ of all people had encouraged him to come, and then promptly gave him Carla’s address.

He digs his phone out of his pocket with his free hand and double-checks that he’s in the right place, just to be sure. If part of him is hoping that he’s not because that means he’ll have an excuse to toss this stupid Tupperware away and hole up in his hotel room, then so be it. 

The address is the right one, however, and like his phone knows he’s liable to convince himself it isn’t anyway, the picture on Google matches the building he’s been standing in front of for the past ten minutes too. 

Once, he told Omar that he has a fear of rejection. While plenty about Samuel and his life has changed since then, that fact certainly hasn’t. 

But if he turned tail and went back to Madrid with nothing to show for it, Guzmán would probably kill him, and he doesn’t doubt that Lu could manage to do even worse despite the six-thousand kilometer distance separating them. Besides that, he definitely would never forgive himself for letting Carla slip away from him for the third time, especially since he knows now that she at least _wants_ to see him. 

She might be mad it’s taken him so long. She’ll probably tease him for the macaroni. He can live with both of those things, as long everything works out in the end. 

With a deep breath, Samuel finally walks up the steps to Carla’s building and ducks inside. The doorman sitting behind the lobby’s desk gives him a suspicious once-over, which Samuel is sure he probably deserves—he knows he currently looks like a walking case of pneumonia—but the man ultimately just nods at him and lets him continue along. Wanting to give himself at least something to focus on, Samuel takes the stairs to the fourth floor instead of the elevator.

He still finds himself standing in front of Carla’s door faster than he expected. His heart seems to be pounding in his ears. He wonders if she felt this way before he opened his own apartment door and found her standing across from him, face covered by her hands. 

Probably not.

Samuel rings the doorbell. 

Suddenly, time feels like it’s going tortuously slow just to fuck with him. He shifts his weight from foot to foot and swipes his sweaty palm on his jeans as he waits. There’s zero noise coming from within the apartment. He knows that’s probably by design because this place is built far better than his own thin-walled place, but he suddenly considers the possibility that Carla might not be home. The universe is hellbent on testing his anxieties today.

Then the door finally opens, and Samuel blinks and looks up. The nervous smile that had begun instinctively spreading across his lips flickers immediately.

He’s tall, is the first thing Samuel notices about the guy standing across from him. It’s actually an unavoidable thing _to_ notice; Samuel has to lift his chin a little to meet his eye. In the split-second it takes for him to do that, he catalogues other details: the guy is broad-shouldered and dressed in the type of clothes he’s come to associate with rich kids since transferring to Las Encinas; he’s a bit on the pale side, but Samuel figures that’s a typical side-effect of living in a place that’s usually so cloudy and dull; and his hair is dark and wavy. 

_At least that part’s consistent._

It’s odd how that thought chooses now to cross his mind. It’s also the only thought, because the rest of his brain is pretty much wiped blank. He just stands there and stares, mouth slightly hanging open.

Out of all the things about this impromptu visit that he hadn’t taken into consideration, a random guy answering Carla’s door is definitely the one he’d been the least prepared for. Is this her boyfriend? No, Lu would know if Carla’s dating someone and she wouldn’t send Samuel here if she was. She’s not that cruel. Well, anymore. 

Maybe they’re just… friends. Or roommates, even though Carla doesn’t seem like the _roommate_ type. 

“Uh… can I help you with something, man?” The guy asks Samuel after a few seconds of silence, giving him a bewildered look. 

Or perhaps Samuel just has the wrong apartment. Either way, he’s never going to find out if he just keeps blinking like an idiot. 

Not only is he regretting the macaroni now, but he’s growing increasingly self-conscious of it as the guy’s puzzled gaze briefly falls to the container. Samuel resists the urge to hide it behind his back and clears his throat, briefly glancing over the guy’s shoulder. 

“Sorry, um, yeah—does Carla live here?”

The guy raises a brow, hazel eyes suddenly sizing Samuel up. “She does,” he says neutrally. “Are you a friend of hers from back home or something? You’ve got the accent.”

A few months ago, Guzmán had asked Samuel what his and Carla’s deal was. _What were you two, anyway? Boyfriend/girlfriend, fuck buddies?_ But Samuel couldn’t give him a proper answer, because he and Carla definitely weren’t dating, and he doesn’t think the two of them have ever been friends, either. It was never that simple between them. 

He fell in love with her, though. That, he knows for sure. 

But he couldn’t explain what they were to someone he considers one of his best friends, and he’s certainly not even going to attempt to do it to someone who could be her—to _this_ guy. 

“Something like that,” Samuel replies vaguely as every single moment he ever spent with her, good and bad, flashes through his mind in a millisecond. 

“What’s your name?”

“Samuel,” he answers somewhat impatiently. 

A wry smile twitches on the guy’s lips. “Never heard of you.”

It doesn’t surprise him in the slightest that Carla’s never mentioned him, but hearing it still stings. It’s probably because he’s hearing it from _him_ , in that condescending and smug tone implying that, to Carla, Samuel means nothing. 

He curls his hand into a fist and works his jaw in an effort to reel himself in. Snappishly, he asks, “Look, is she home right now, or...?” 

The guy studies him for a beat longer before ultimately nodding. “Yeah,” he says, then cranes his head to the side and shouts further into the apartment, “Babe, there’s someone—”

 _Babe._ The word confirms everything at the same time that it hits Samuel like a semi truck. He feels humiliation crawl up his throat, as caustic and suffocating as acid. Screw what Guzmán and Lu will think, he needs to leave _now._

“Actually, never mind, I just remembered I—I need to go,” he stammers with whatever breath he has left in his lungs, shaking his head, and he can’t focus on how the guy’s looking at him as if he’s grown a second one because the Tupperware suddenly feels like it’s searing the skin of his palms. Without thinking, he shoves it into the guy’s hands. 

Samuel turns and hurries back towards the stairs.

Of course, Carla’s moved on; he waited too long to come after her and he’s stupid to have assumed otherwise. The macaroni was stupid. _This_ was all so fucking _stupid._

*

Sitting at her vanity, Carla rolls her eyes at her reflection as she puts the finishing touches onto her makeup for the evening. It’s not that she particularly hates pet names, she just hates when Nico calls her babe _._ Just because she’s let him stay here overnight once or twice doesn’t mean that they’re actually, well, _together_. 

They met a party a girl in her Statistics class had invited her to, and because moving away from her home and to a semi-foreign place miraculously did not erase all of the loneliness that had been haunting Carla for the past five months—and was, in fact, only growing rapidly worse—she’d let him hit on her, and she let him take her home. Despite the hair color, he looked practically nothing like the person she was actually craving. It’d been fun. Easy. And she liked him enough to let him distract her a handful more times after that. Sure, he can kind of be annoyingly arrogant, but he treats her nice enough, and he’s casual about their whole thing without being an asshole about it. 

At least, she _thought_ he was casual, but lately he’s been making himself more at home here, addressing the club outings like they’re supposed to head to tonight “dates”, and calling her things like _babe._

She’s not his babe. She’s not his girl. 

_He’s_ not anything more than a distraction—or maybe a balm that’s starting to lose its effectiveness, because she’s been getting steadily annoyed with his constant presence in her life, and growing even more into the habit of comparing him to the guy he’s supposed to be replacing. 

It’d probably been dumb of Carla to think that anyone could replace him. She loved boys before him, and for longer, true. But she never fell _in_ love like she did with him. Sometimes, she wonders if she’ll ever meet another person who can make her feel the same way he had; if she’ll be able to sit through an entire dinner date and not think about mushy pasta and over-salted sauce. It’s frightening how _no_ is becoming the increasingly obvious answer. 

She misses him. To make matters worse, she can’t even blame him for it. She can’t fault his radio silence of the past six months when all she offered him the last time they saw one another was a simple and stupid _that depends, will you bring macaroni?_ in response. She’s spent so much time cursing herself for not being upfront then and there. For not telling him that she’s sorry, she didn’t mean anything she said or did, that she—

That she loves him, too. 

The sound of approaching footsteps brings her back to reality, and she composes herself just in time as Nico walks into the room. Perhaps the reason why she hasn’t gotten rid of him yet is because no matter how much he’s beginning to irritate her, it’s still a thousand times more preferable than stewing in her regret.

“Who was at the door?” She asks idly, capping her lipstick and fixing the edges with her index finger. 

Nico scoffs in bemusement, eyes fixed on whatever he’s holding. “Some guy, I don’t know. He flipped out and ran away out of nowhere. Said his name was—”

“Samuel,” Carla, having already risen from her chair and turned around, whispers distantly as her gaze naturally falls onto the plastic container gripped in Nico’s hands. The name rings in her ears. She’s frozen in place.

“Uh, yeah,” Nico says, sounding a little surprised. But he seems not to notice how Carla’s become rooted to the spot, eyes wide. “So, you _do_ know him? I thought he might have been lying. What kind of freak shows up and gives somebody this before taking off?” Nico holds up the opaque container, inspecting its contents with a disgusted curl of his lip. “What even _is_ this, anyway?”

Carla’s feet have apparently closed the distance between the two of them without her even realizing it, and now the container is in her own hands. She stares down at it, not listening to whatever Nico is saying now. 

_Samuel._ Samuel was _here_. He brought this with him. He finally came to see her. He showed up at her apartment and rang the doorbell and—

And Nico answered. 

Oh, no. _Shit._ Carla has no doubt what’s probably going through his head right now. She needs to go after him before it’s too late. She drops the container on her dresser and begins striding towards the front of her apartment, Nico following closely behind. 

“Carla, what the hell’s gotten into you? Where are you going?”

“I—there’s something I need to do,” she answers breathlessly, hardly paying any attention to him as she reaches for the front door. 

But she’s stopped by Nico’s hand on her arm. “What? But we’re supposed to meet the others at—”

His touch serves to diminish the rest of her shock, and the full force of her urgency takes over. She doesn’t care about their plans anymore. 

“I can’t go with you. I don’t _want_ to go with you,” she says in a rush, and harsh enough that he reels back a little. “I have to go. And you do too, okay?”

Too caught off-guard to do anything else, Nico doesn’t fight her as she herds him out of the apartment. “Are you breaking up with me?”

If she were any less desperate and in a hurry, she’d roll her eyes. “That would require you and I actually being a couple, but if it makes you understand better, then _yes_ , I am breaking up with you.” She softens a little, feeling a bit guilty. None of this is necessarily Nico’s fault, and he probably deserves more than just her kicking him to the curb. “Listen, I had fun with you. I mean that. But you had to have known that this was never serious, right?”

The second that Nico takes to look at her feels like forever, and not in a good way. Eventually, though, he sighs and nods his head. Carla smiles in relief, beginning to back away.

“But where are you going?” He calls after her. 

“When you find that person, you’ll get it,” she tells him. “Trust me.”

With that, Carla leaves him standing in the hallway as she runs for the stairs. She can only hope that Nico will be gone by the time she gets back, and she can only pray that Samuel _isn’t._

The lobby is empty aside from the doorman. Outside, it’s coming down hard. Her hair is straightened, makeup freshly done; all she’s wearing is a mini dress, because the jacket she was initially going to wear out tonight is still hanging in her closet. Carla disregards all of that and rushes out into the London rain, looking around for any signs of Samuel. 

She can’t pick him out amongst anyone walking along the street. The rain is also making it tough to see, getting in her eyes and turning figures into hazy outlines.

Carla curses as she realizes that she left her phone back upstairs. She can’t even call him.

 _Please, be here. Please._

She takes a few unsteady steps forward so that the rose bushes aren’t blocking her view of the rest of the street so much, and that’s when she finally sees him. There, a dark figure pacing at the far end of the sidewalk, back to her. Despite that, she knows it’s him. She can’t explain it; she just does. 

Her lungs suddenly feel like they’ve stopped working, but she somehow manages to yell out his name. 

“Samuel!”

He doesn’t turn around, apparently unable to hear her over the rain and the traffic, but that’s okay, because Carla’s legs are already bringing her closer. For some reason, she doesn’t run now. She simply can’t, even though adrenaline is pumping throughout her veins in a way it hasn’t in a very long time. She feels as if she’s walking through a pool and not rainwater, sluggish and slow. 

So it surprises her when she blinks and suddenly, he’s only a few feet away from her. 

“Samuel?” She asks softly. A question, because now that she’s this close, part of her thinks she might be hallucinating. 

But instead of vanishing into thin air, at the sound of her voice, he freezes. Then he slowly turns and faces her. 

Her eyes roam all over him. Water is dripping from the tips of his too-long hair, his eyelashes, and the point of his nose, which has also gone pink because of the cold. He stares back at her, dumbstruck. Maybe if she wasn’t so speechless herself she’d tease him for looking like a half-drowned crazy person, but at the same time, she doesn’t think she’s ever seen a sight so beautiful.

They stand like that for several seconds. It’s not until Samuel finally opens his mouth that Carla erases the remaining distance between them, wraps her arms around his neck, and tucks her face into his soaked shoulder. 

Whatever he’d been about to say comes out in a soft puff of air instead, exhaled by her ear. She doesn’t say anything either, just holds him tight. Eventually, she feels his hands fall to her waist; then, slowly, his own arms snake around her back. 

Carla doesn’t want to ever let go of him, but she knows they can’t stay like this forever. Reluctantly, she draws back after a moment of indulgence and looks between his dark eyes, disbelief thick and warm in her chest. She doesn’t stop Samuel from speaking now as he licks his lips and parts them, expression still a little bewildered. 

“You’re barefoot,” he remarks blankly.

Carla giggles. She isn’t sure what she expected him to say, but it certainly wasn’t that. Then she looks down at her feet, finally registering that she hadn’t actually grabbed any shoes before leaving her place, and giggles again. She sounds slightly hysterical to her own ears, or perhaps just giddy. Under normal circumstances, she’d probably grimace in disgust, because she’d never allow herself to step out into the filthy street _barefoot_. Currently, though, she can’t bring herself to care.

Samuel is standing right in front of her. She’s _touching_ him. Of course, she isn’t going to care about anything else. 

“I am,” she agrees before gazing back up at him in wonder. “You came.”

“Yeah,” he says with a nod. All of a sudden, something in his eyes shifts at the same time that his posture stiffens. “Sorry.”

Carla frowns in confusion. “What are you apologizing for?”

His gaze moves over her shoulder as he looks at her building. “I should have called, or… I don’t know.” His jaw clenches, just barely, and Carla probably would’ve missed it if she wasn’t so hyper aware of everything about him at the moment. “I didn’t mean to interrupt whatever plans you have with…”

“Nico,” she finishes automatically. 

Samuel nods again. “Nico,” he echoes, seemingly testing the name on his tongue and trying not to let it show that it tastes bitter. 

In spite of the guilt she feels about him meeting Nico, Carla can’t help but like the way that Samuel is so obviously jealous. At Las Encinas, it hurt having to see him like this. It hurt because _he_ was hurting and she couldn’t do anything about it, but… now she can. And it’s gratifying, knowing that he still wants her enough to be jealous.

She gives him a reassuring smile. “You didn’t interrupt anything. It’s not—he wasn’t like that.”

“‘Wasn’t’?” Samuel searches her gaze. He’s clearly trying not to seem so hopeful, but she can see flickers of it reflecting back at her. 

Still smiling, Carla gently shakes her head. “Wasn’t.” 

She glances down and reaches for his hand. He lets her take it, their fingers slotting together. When she meets his eyes again, he’s finally got a smile of his own curling the corners of his mouth, and he’s looking back at her intently. 

“Come on,” Carla says, tugging him forward. “I have the world’s best reheated macaroni waiting upstairs.”


End file.
